Politics Is Local; Wisconsin GOP Politics Remain Corrupt

Fitchburg, Wisconsin alder,
Dorothy Krause beats back
a racist whisper campaign

Updated - Unofficial Turnout 19.3 percent for April 2 Wisconsin Election -
No major surprises in Wisconsin outside of a longtime Madison alder getting beat on the near-west side by progressive newcomer, John Strasser.

Overwhelming money again bought a GOP Supreme Court justice reelection.

Progressive politics continues to dominate in Dane County, Wisconsin.

In Fitchburg, Wisconsin alder, Dorothy Krause, handily beat back a challenge that featured a racist, whisper campaign from some involved in a neighborhood association who tried to divide minority and young voters from the community.

Not sure folks can use neighborhood associations that way in electoral campaigns, I know they ought not.

That racist campaign lost. As a 93-year-old black man, named Percy, said to me, "I was here again to cast my vote again, sir," as he waited for a cab. I asked him if he wanted a chair [state law allows election inspectors to make reasonable accommodations], and he said he was fine

His dignity did our election night proud.

Alder Krause won by knocking on doors and talking to people, even renters and minorities. "Everyone in my district counts," Krause told me over the weekend.

Our sitting corrupt, GOP justice—aided by the Wisconsin Club for Growth and the Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce's spending $100,000s—won by vastly outspending her opponent, Ed Fallone in a low voter turnout affair.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Justice Pat Roggensack had 478,420 votes to Fallone's 355,591 votes.

Compare those totals to Wisconsin's second-in-the-nation turnout (some 72 percent) in the 2012 presidential general election:  1,620,985 votes (Obama-Biden) to 1,407,966 votes (Romney-Ryan), and every serious political observer sees why an unscrupulous GOP wants to obstruct voters from voting.

President Obama's total vote alone was almost twice that of the Roggensack-Fallone race total vote combined.

Don't look for Roggensack to recuse herself from cases involving the two groups [Wisconsin Club for Growth and the Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce]; they put her back into office and Roggensack serves for their purposes and that of the Republican Party.

Tony Evers, Wisconsin State School Superintendent, beat a Republican, anti-public school whack whom even some Republicans were reportedly embarrassed to have in the rightwing, gerrymandered state assembly.

In Dane County, Rhonda Lanford beat a Scott Walker-appointed judge (thought well of by many Democrats) who was perceived as cozying up too much with Walker by spouting Republican judicial pablum in her application for the job.

So-called Merit Selection Is GOP Fraud

The Wisconsin State Journal continues its years-long advocacy of 'merit selection' of Wisconsin supreme court justices, to replace direct citizens' election.

The State Journal's idea is deceitful, and the text even in its latest editorial belies the intent to install more GOP justices onto the Court.

Writes the State Journal: "(J)udicial elections are turning Wisconsin’s best judges into the worst of politicians. The candidates routinely take campaign money from the same attorneys and special interest groups that eventually will come before the court, seeking favorable decisions. That creates conflicts of interest and deep distrust in court decisions."

Yes, GOP judicial candidates take campaign money from special interests in obvious conflicts of interests on whose cases the GOP justices rule—that's the "Roggensack Rule," in which the four GOP justices alone "accepted verbatim a rule suggested by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, which stated that a campaign donation by itself could never require a recusal." (Murphy)

Yet, the State Journal editors refuse to advocate the defeat of the GOP justices.

Ed Fallone has campaigned against the Roggensack Rule, so the State Journal will endorse Fallone, right?

No. The State Journal wants Roggensack and the other three GOP justices and their rubber stamp votes on Scott Walker's agenda. Where's the merit in that?

If the State Journal were really concerned about conflict of interests and money, they would be opposing the four GOP perpetrators on the court.

The State Journal's editorial is composed mostly of criticism of all the special interest money in the race.

Not surprisingly, Scott Walker and the GOP killed public financing for candidates to the state Supreme Court in 2011, a move that nevertheless earned the GOP the State Journal's editorial support.

The State Journal's editorial is entitled the "The no-comment campaign," because the candidates rightfully refuse comment cases in which they are likely to rule ... sometimes.

But even the title is misleading as Roggensack has made clear her intention to uphold the GOP's Act 10 (passed with unanimous GOP support and no Democratic support) and the GOP's voter obstruction law (again passed with unanimous GOP support and no Democratic support): "Roggensack said that if Fallone is elected he would 'chip away' at the powers of the other two branches of government (currently held by the GOP in secretly gerrymandered districts)," notes Jud Lounsbury.

Chip away. How's that? By overturning unconstitutional laws?

The four GOP justices are corrupt. The State Journal editors know this, and refuse to point out the GOP corruption.

The State Journal had rather adopt a reformist pose and advocate taking away public scrutiny of the third branch of Wisconsin government.

Transparency is not the GOP and State Journal's way.

By the way, Chief Justice Abrahamson's proposal for open deliberation of the Supreme Court was opposed four-to-three with all four GOP justices voting to block transparency to the State Journal's approval.

Fallone opposes secrecy. Roggensack voted for secrecy. Where's the merit in that?