Tim Burns, Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate, Rankles Establishment-Sleaze Complex

Rebecca Dallet gave $2,500 to Koch-brothers-funded
Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Pat Roggensack.
(Wisconsin Campaign Fiance Report, p.7)

Tim Burns' toughest opponent is the civil-liberties hating, Koch brothers-loving Rebecca Dallet

Madison, Wisconsin—There's a Spring primary election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Feb. 20.

The candidates are Tim Burns, Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock.

Tim Burns is running a hard-hitting, progressive campaign stressing that Wisconsin law and liberties mean ordinary citizens are big players in Wisconsin on the scales of justice.

The rightwinger Screnock, a Scott Walker clone, disagrees.

The corporatist, Dallet, is why Republicans are ascendant in Wisconsin.

Dallet is a stooge for the Koch-brothers-funded and rightwing Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Pat Roggensack.

Dallet went so far as to contribute $2,500 to Roggensack in 2013 for Roggensack's successful reelection campaign.

The Bernie Sanders movement-created Our Wisconsin Revolution has endorsed Tim Burns:

From Our Wisconsin Revolution:

Tim Burns is running for this important position to make sure that the judicial system and especially the highest court in the state is acting to ensure a level playing field for everyone and not corporate interests. This focus aligns with the values Our Wisconsin Revolution is fighting for in Wisconsin. Our members know Tim will bring an experienced, authentic voice of reason to the Supreme Court, a voice that sides with the people of this state. We are eager to mobilize 6,000 members across the state in support of Tim through the Primary and General Election in April.  -- Sarah Lloyd, OWR Co-Chair.

Dallet and Screnock can raise all the money they want. Can garner all the establishment endorsements, and contribute as much money as them want to Koch brothers-funded judges like Roggensack.

The people and law are on Tim Burns' side.

From the Capital Times:

I am the grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers. My father was forced out of school by poverty in fifth grade; my mother in the 10th. But I grew up in a time when a minimum wage job could support a family. We had great public schools and libraries, and I could work hard and become one of the top lawyers in the country.

My national practice is devoted to suing insurance companies and I’ve had the privilege of representing clients from 36 states and 10 foreign countries. I am the only candidate in this race with appellate court experience. I was one of a handful of young lawyers appointed each year to serve as a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals. I’ve both served as a prosecutor and defended indigent clients in criminal court, but my experience starts there, it doesn’t end there.

I’m running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court for four reasons.

First, I’m running because in the span of my adulthood, equal opportunity for the children of people who struggle has disappeared in our country. It has been replaced by a system where most new income and wealth goes to the top 1 percent and everyone else works longer and harder for less and less. The inequity is astounding, and our rubber-stamp Wisconsin Supreme Court is part of the problem. The courts are the final authority in this country, and ours has been looking out for special interests, instead of standing up for regular people.

Second, I’m running because this is the court that upheld a photo ID law that cost Hillary Clinton Wisconsin’s electoral votes. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s, every major political decision in this country sooner or later finds its way into the courts. If we don’t take back the courts, we will never truly take back our state.

Third, I’m running because President Trump has nominated and has had confirmed extreme right-wing judges on the federal courts. We can no longer count on the federal courts to protect our basic rights, such as the right to vote, workers' rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive rights. Increasingly, we will need to turn to state courts, like the Wisconsin Supreme Court, for such protections.

Finally, I’m running because I’m a progressive and I think that is what our court needs at this moment in time. Before being appointed to the bench by Gov. Scott Walker in 2015, Judge Michael Screnock worked as an attorney to create the current gerrymandered legislative maps, he helped defend Act 10 in court, and was twice arrested for protesting outside an abortion clinic. He proudly touts his conservative judicial philosophy and admiration of the late Justice Antonin Scalia at every campaign stop.

My other opponent, Judge Rebecca Dallet, is running on her experience, but it is her experience that keeps me up at night. I find her ruling in Wisconsin v. Ryan Erik Diggins extremely offensive. An individual should not be subject to search because they are a person of color standing in a public location for five minutes. Judge Dallet has previously supported conservative judges in Wisconsin, including Chief Justice Pat Roggensack her 2013 race against Ed Fallone.

We do not need more friends of Governor Walker or Chief Justice Roggensack on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

We can change this court before the next presidential election, and the people who are supporting my campaign, Our Revolution, American Federation of Teachers Local 212, former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, former Congressman Steve Kagen, Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, former Lt. Gov. Lawton, Congressman Mark Pocan, and others, are ready for a fight to take back this court.

Please join us.

Tim Burns

Light em' up, Tim.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Race—Spectacle of Deceit

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Tim Burns has
often expressed his view that clean and safe water
is protected in the Wisconsin Constitution, statutes
and derived administrative law.

Top Appellate Court Race Misleading and Shameful

Madison, Wisconsin—There are two credible candidates in the Wisconsin Supreme Court primary on Feb. 20—Tim Burns and Rebecca Dallet.

A third candidate, Michael Screnock, is a no-count right winger whom Wisconsinites should reject.

The race for the open Wisconsin Supreme Court seat is for the top appellate court in the state judiciary. In deciding a case, an appellate judge informs the state what the relevant law is and how the law is applied to a case that may be fraught with error from lower court(s).

Rarely does the Supreme Court hear non-appellate cases (original jurisdiction), not decided by lower courts.

Yet, this fact is ignored in the political culture as the media and most campaigns fool the electorate into believing the Supreme Court is a trial court. Or a rubber stamp for a special class of litigants and communities of interest like a county sheriff, district attorney, some dopey rightwing law enforcement association such as the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association, or Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce and the Koch brothers-funded Club for Growth.

Five of the seven justices—Patience D. Roggensack, Annette Kingsland Ziegler, Michael J. Gableman, Rebecca Grassl Bradley, and Daniel Kelly—are corrupt party hacks with their elections bought-and-paid-for by special interest groups. Any pretension otherwise is false.

The anointed right winger to replace the outgoing Justice Gableman, Michael Screnock, would, if elected, be another corrupt hack for far right wing Republicans.

Absentee voting has begun for the Feb. 20 primary election, and nine days out, not a single reference in Wisconsin media notes the principal function of the Supreme Court—the state's top appellate court. The Wisconsin people are being conned from multiple parties.

Rebecca Dallet's Lie

Rebecca Dallet is guilty of this deceit about the Supreme Court as seen in Dallet's campaign web page and advertising.

Dallet sings her praises as a prosecutor and circuit court judge, while presenting campaign surrogates criticizing Tim Burns for not being a trial jurist.

Dallet goes so far as to pronounce Burns "unqualified" because he is not a trial attorney. On this basis many of the faculty at Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School are unqualified. Take for instance, Joel Rogers, all-around friendly face whom most Wisconsin pols have encountered once or twice. Rogers has never argued a case at trial, so by Dallet's reasoning is unqualified to sit on this contrived high trial court.

We are not electing a trial judge here; the Wisconsin Supreme Court is an appellate court.

Lying about the nature of the office one seeks should be a political disqualification.

Why is Rebecca Dallet pretending the Supreme Court is a trial court, or is she just lying? Because Dallet like the five Republican Party hacks lacks the character to simply tell the truth.

Good Appellate Judging

What makes a good appellate judge such as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, an impoverished institution of lies and corruption today?

Consider the wisdom of Richard Posner (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, (1981-2017)), on judicial opinion writing in federal appellate court: "Be sure to read every case, statute, regulation article, treatise, etc., cited, [case documents]," (p. 257, Reflections on Judging (Harvard University Press. 2013)).

A good Wisconsin Supreme Court justice should be an intellectual, a scholar, a researcher, a jurist who loves reading with a full understanding and appreciation of the litigants, human beings. A justice should as well be impartial, and not rule in accordance with the Republican Party special interests in Wisconsin, for example.

Ideally, candidates seeking the office of a Supreme Court justice should stow the law-and-order, we’re-tough rhetoric, and specifically Rebecca Dallet's he's-no-litigator hokum.

And it truly does not matter how many sheriffs and law enforcement officials you have in your camp.

Honesty demands candidates edify the electorate on judicial processes, the function of the top appellate court in ascertaining what the law is, and the candidates' ability and dedication to this enterprise.

Electing judges whose job it is to avoid advocacy once in office ought to result in the candidates' insulating themselves from specific communities of interest (and their money) during their campaigns.

 An Endorsement

Tim Burns is a breath of fresh air because of his insistence on informing the electorate where he stands on issues of the moment.

Burns has campaigned on his insistence that Wisconsin citizens are the beneficiaries, the stakeholders, of judiciary policymaking. Burns pledges to fight against special interests, and while omitting the appellate function of the court, also pledges to fight for the citizens for whom laws are enacted.

Candidates not mindful of this status of citizens tend to ignore these same citizens once they get into office.

Writes Burns on his website:

• Do you want a Supreme Court that protects your right to vote?
• Do you want a Supreme Court that protects your right to hike and fish in a Wisconsin free from pollution?
• Do you want a Supreme Court that protects your right to ask for a pay raise – regardless if you ask by yourself or collectively with your fellow workers?
• Do you want a Supreme Court that protects your right to build your own small business, or your own small farm and compete on a level playing field with the massive corporations of the world?

There is no pretension from Tim Burns that he is living in a cocoon. For instance, Burns does understand the powerful, affirmative right to vote in Wisconsin.

Burns does believe these rights and liberties are protected by the Wisconsin Constitution and statutes.

This commitment and honesty make Tim Burns the clear choice for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, not to serve special interests, not to work as a trial jurist, but to serve Wisconsin citizens by impartially researching and applying the law.

Rebecca Bradley's 'Apology' Strains Credulity

One Wisconsin Now's report on the vile rants of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley has resulted in an apology from the candidate up for reelection on April 5.

No longer, Bradley says, does she regard AIDS victims as "degenerates," "abnormal" people who "kill themselves" and deserve no "compassion" and "sympathy."

Now Bradley after One Wisconsin Now's report, says her writings are "not reflective of my worldview."
 
Bradley was appointed by Scott Walker three times in three years, the same Walker who surrounds himself with anti-Semitic, homophobic, repellent individuals cut from the same cloth as Bradley, (The Progressive).

"To those offended by comments I made as a young college student, I apologize, and assure you that those comments are not reflective of my worldview. These comments have nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist, and they have nothing to do with the issues facing the voters of this state," said Bradley in a statement.

Bradley did not elaborate on the self-examination and analysis in which she engaged, leading her to a new and different conclusion on 'abnormal degenerates'.

Wisconsinites should be aware of the type of person running for election on the state Supreme Court. Her strangely worded explanation strains credulity, and is unconvincing.

Consider if Bradley had mocked Jews, the disabled, "blacks" and Mexicans—as Scott Walker's aides did, (The Progressive)—would it be credible to accept that Walker and his aides really don't retain this 'worldview'? Bradley is not credible, and hate and bigotry have NO place on the Court.

Wisc SC Judge's Hate-filled Rants Should Disqualify Rebecca Bradley

The hate and wisdom of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley;
Bradley was appointed to the Court to fill a vacancy by Gov. Scott Walker

Gov. Scott Walker has appointed an ideological and unqualified Rebecca Bradley three times to Wisconsin courts since 2012, most recently to the Wisconsin Supreme Court last October.

Under Walker's extremist tenure, Wisconsin has become a model of corruption and failure in too many ways to enumerate as an insidious, hateful ethos marking the Republican Party of Wisconsin has become the hallmark of the gerrymandered legislature, a benighted governor and the Wisconsin Supreme Court that has lost credibility as an impartial top appellate state court.

The Court is worse than even the most rigorous detractors believed.

Yesterday, One Wisconsin Now exposed Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley penned a series of hateful and venomous attacks on gay people and others living with HIV.

Bradley published her writings in the Marquette Tribune in 1992, referring to the LGBTQ community as "queers" and "degenerates," and mocking the AIDS epidemic. It gets worse, see One Wisconsin Now's press release below.

"The hate and vitriol for others Rebecca Bradley displayed in her writings was repugnant and unbecoming for a university student then and it is absolutely unacceptable for a justice of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court today. She is unfit to serve on our high court, and if she has a shred of decency or integrity she will resign immediately," concluded Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now's Executive Director.

Bradley is up for election on April 5, [2016 Spring Election and Presidential Preference Vote (Presidential Primary)], and Wisconsin voters should and likely will reject Bradley's bigotry, and her corruption as a judge who views her position on the Court as a means of furthering the special interests now holding sway in the Republican Party.

Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg who is running against Bradley released a statement reading: "There is no statute of limitations on hate. Rebecca Bradley’s comments are as abhorrent and disturbing today as they were in 1992 as people were dying in huge numbers from AIDS. Her career since that time includes being appointed three times to three judgeships in three years by Scott Walker who is against gay rights. Rebecca Bradley’s alliance with conservative causes and Scott Walker speaks louder than any apology she tries to make." 

Walker said he was not aware of Bradley's views when he appointed her as a circuit, appellate and Supreme Court judge, then asserted Bradley's views had changed in the same sentence, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

One Wisconsin Now's press release is reproduced below:

Rebecca Bradley’s Published Writings Reveal Opinions That Cross Line Into Hate Speech
 
One Wisconsin Now Uncovers State Court Justice’s ‘Venomous’ Homophobia, Calls for Her Resignation 

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote a series of hateful and venomous attacks on gay people and people living with HIV, according to articles obtained by One Wisconsin Now. The hate speech in the articles disqualifies Bradley from continuing to hold office and should result in her immediate resignation from the state Supreme Court, according to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross, who released the records at a news conference this morning with a representative of national civil rights group People For the American Way.

“Rebecca Bradley has revealed such a depth of hatred and contempt for people that she cannot be trusted to uphold the most basic tenet of our judicial system, that all are equal before the law,” said Ross. “She denies people their dignity because they are different than her and condemns people that hold political beliefs other than hers.”

In writings published in the Marquette Tribune, Bradley, in multiple instances, derisively referred to members of the LGBTQ community as “queers” and “degenerates”, claimed “homosexual sex kills,” mocked the AIDS epidemic and declared the nearly 45 million voters who supported President Clinton were, “either totally stupid or entirely evil.”

Scott Foval, the Madison-based Regional Political Coordinator for the national organization People For the American Way, also criticized Bradley’s statements, calling them “demeaning.”

Foval commented, “As a gay man and long-term survivor living with HIV, Rebecca Bradley’s hateful diatribes against people like me while at Marquette are shocking and deeply disturbing. I question how anyone in the LGBTQ community, or anyone living with HIV/AIDS feels they could get a fair decision from her. The demeaning statements she authored gravely undermines her ability to continue to serve on the state Supreme Court.”

The thinness of Bradley’s legal resume left her referencing things like a college term paper she wrote in applying for one of the unprecedented three appointments in three years by Gov. Scott Walker. And while disclosing other articles she authored, she specifically failed to make any mention her newspaper writings.

Ross noted there are numerous issues regarding Bradley’ trustworthiness, from her position that judges ought to be able to lie in their campaigns to a string of dishonest and misleading statements about her partisan political inclinations and work with the outside groups in her campaigns. But the deep seeded hatred and contempt Bradley revealed in these writings rises to a new level, displaying such bias she cannot be counted on to fairly judge cases that might come before the court that involve discrimination issues.

“The hate and vitriol for others Rebecca Bradley displayed in her writings was repugnant and unbecoming for a university student then and it is absolutely unacceptable for a justice of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court today. She is unfit to serve on our high court, and if she has a shred of decency or integrity she will resign immediately,” concluded Ross.
#

Destruction of Wisconsin Supreme Court Draws National Derision

When news broke in 2012 that Scott Walker appointed members to a state judicial watchdog agency— charged with enforcing high standards of judicial ethics—based on fidelity to the Republican Party and not ethics, observers should have concluded Walker wanted to corrupt the courts (Millhiser, ThinkProgress) (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) (Kemble, The Progressive).

Wisconsin corporate media largely ignores the fact that the third branch of government has become corrupted under the tenure of Scott Walker, and the four GOP members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court openly see themselves as beholden to their rightwing campaign contributors.

Nationally, the media is taking notice. Lincoln Caplan's piece in The New Yorker correctly points to The Destruction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court as a consequence of money funneled on behalf of justices and abandonment of public integrity "during the governorship of Scott Walker."

Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack defends this massive infusion of money in judicial elections and the refusal of justices to recuse themselves from cases where litigants have funded the justices' election.

Roggensack's arguments are absurd. "We have an elective system and the judges are presumed to be honest, fair and independent. So we have to be careful that in our efforts here about recusal, we don't basically besmirch the judiciary as a whole" (WPR, 2013).

Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin are held in April and are low-turnout affairs typically drawing 20-some percent of the electorate.

Roggensack's statement that judges are presumed to be honest, fair and independent show a politician either completely out-of-touch or, in Roggensack's case, corrupt and a disgrace to the bench.

Writes Caplan:

Last week, the United States Supreme Court upheld a Florida judicial rule that prohibits candidates for election to state judgships from personally soliciting money for their campaigns. 'Judges are not politicians,' Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision [Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar], 'even when they come to the bench by way of the ballot.' He went on, 'Simply put, Florida and most other States have concluded that the public may lack confidence in a judge’s ability to administer justice without fear or favor if he comes to office by asking for favors.'

There is no need for 'may' in that sentence. In many of the thirty-nine states that elect judges, a dramatic rise in campaign contributions and related spending has caused a well-documented erosion of public confidence in state courts.

In Wisconsin, with Scott Walker's radical disregard for ethics, the rule of law and the public interest presents the worst case in the nation.

Roggensack, part of the Republican Party bloc on the Court, was reelected in 2013 and her campaign was outspent by the corporate special interests—Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC)—supporting her reelection, as was the case in the other three GOP justices' campaigns (Fischer, PRWatch).

All of the four GOP justices joined in voting down internal Court conflict-of-interest rules that would have mandated recusals when massive campaign contributions clearly cast doubt on the ability of justices to render judgments on the parties that funded their campaigns.

"In Wisconsin, the decision to recuse rests solely with the justices themselves, and in 2010 the Court adopted rules drafted by the WMC, declaring that the fact of a campaign contribution alone won't require recusal" (Fischer, PRWatch).

The law of the land in Wisconsin for the judiciary is: Fund my election, and I'll vote your way if you come before my court.

Now, the future of Scott Walker as the center of a John Doe probe, remains in the hands of the four GOP justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who have made their sentiments known on the judiciary and corrupt influences.

"In the coming weeks, ... outside campaign spending may be at issue again as the State Supreme Court considers whether an investigation can proceed into claims that Mr. Walker’s campaign improperly coordinated the spending by conservative groups during campaigns in 2011 and 2012 to recall him and state lawmakers after the collective bargaining cuts," notes Monica Davey in The New York Times.

With Justices David Prosser, Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman on the seven-member Court, one doubts Scott Walker is sweating the outcome.