Stopping that 'Urban' Vote

Update: Here we are, March 2014. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act a year ago; Republican attacks on early voting in cities continue; Republicans enact obstructive voter ID laws in state where they have power; and Paul Ryan keeps sounding the racist dog whistles about the "inner cities." In Wisconsin, Right Wisconsin, a new Tea Bagger website, is known among political writers as White Wisconsin. Thousands of Scott Walker and his aides' emails are ordered released, and racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic jokes are found to circulate freely in Scott Walker land.

Racism and misogyny are the theme songs for a political party that has become detestable.
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"Well, I could call my good friend, Lenny Kravitz. He's only half-urban," said (in disgust) the fictional talk show producer, Artie, in the hilarious Larry Sanders Show (HBO. 1992-1998).

Artie refers to the fictional network's concern that the guest rap group, Wu-Tang Clan, is too black and scary for small-town white America.

The relevancy to today's politics is that the Republican Party and the Tea Party will not halt their voter obstruction program aimed at 'urban' voters, and use the same euphemism, urban for black.

The difference between elections and comedy is depriving Americans of the right to vote is not a funny matter, outside of Tea Party and GOP circles where a sitting GOP member of Congress feels free to make "wet back" jokes on the radio.

Without racism, the GOP and Tea Party (the white parties) are dead.

In Wisconsin, urban means Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine counties. Along with Dane County, these four counties comprise some one-third of Wisconsin's 2012 presidential election voting total.

The GOP stops enough 'urban' people voting, and they win.

The current national GOP chair is Wisconsin GOP's voter obstruction operative, Reince Priebus, so look for this contemptible voter obstruction program to continue regardless of wins the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

As Paul Ryan said after the 2012 presidential election, "The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race." (Shear, Steinhauer. NYT. Nov. 13, 2012)

Those "urban" voters—almost a half century after the civil rights movement's legislative accomplishments like the Voting Rights Act, they still don't know their place.

Maybe the five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court (and the four Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court) can take care of this "urban" problem. http://www.rightwisconsin.com/

Ed Fallone for Wisconsin Supreme Court

If people turn out and vote, Fallone and the rule of law win.

If not, the corrupt four GOP justices win.

From Fallone for Wisconsin Supreme Court:

All Wisconsin families deserve Equal Access to Justice. We need to level the playing field so that working families have as much access as the special interests.

I am running to ensure that the court is not tilted toward special interests. I would work to change the rules of the Court to make it more transparent by bringing administrative meetings into the open.

I would work to repeal the rule that allows lawyers and parties with a pending case before the Court to give campaign contributions to Justices hearing the case.

We need Justices that have the courage to be independent in the face of political pressure and rule according to the law. I will be that kind of Justice on the Supreme Court.

My Plan for the Supreme Court

• Work to Change the rules to keep special interest money out of the decisions of the court
• Keep the Court independent of politics.
• Work to End the infighting among the Justices

Justice Pat Roggensack Lists Sheriff Who Negligently Incarcerated Freed, Innocent Man

Joseph "Joey" Awe - Another
innocent man goes free. Imprisoned by
negligent law enforcement and
corrupt District Attorney.

Innocents Incarcerated and Freed Show Inappropriate Use of Police Images in Supreme Court Campaigns

Updated - Take a look at Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack's endorsements on her website and a reader will find one Sheriff Kim Gaffney of Marquette County.

But Kim Gaffney, Marquette County Sheriff (1975-present), is responsible, along with the past Marquette County DA [then-Marquette County District Attorney Richard Dufour (2006)], for putting an innocent man behind bars (for arson)—a common occurrence in the American prison-industrial complex.

Joseph "Joey" Awe was convicted in September 2006 because Gaffney and the insurance company (Mt. Morris Mutual Insurance Company) could not find an explanation for a fire that began in the electrical service panel of a 130-year-old building.

The Sheriff and DA blamed Mr. Awe; and the insurance company saved money from having to pay a policy, and Sheriff Gaffney got to fly the flag of law-and-order, after a Sheriff's investigator conducted only one interview with Awe.

They—Sheriff Gaffney, the DA and Mt. Morris Mutual Insurance Company—relied on the discredited practice on "negative corpus," concluding the fire must be intentional because no cause was found.

No evidence implicated Awe.

Wonder if Gaffney will issue an apology.

The innocent Awe spent three years behind bars before a judge ordered his release from incarceration.

The Wisconsin State Journal's Dee Hall deserves special recognition for digging into the case and her superlative investigative reporting throughout this case. Said Awe, "I don't think I would be where I am now (free) if it weren't for (the State Journal). I know I wouldn't."

As Justice Pat Roggensack proudly lists Sheriff Gaffney's name on her endorsements page, one wonders if Rogeensack will renounce Sheriff Gaffney and remove her name from her campaign.

The problem with listing law enforcement officials generally in a run for judge is the presumption that the police and the DA's office are always right and righteous. Nothing could be further from the truth; talk to the folks at your local Innocence Project.

In any event, we have the images of righteousness, goodness and rectitude conveyed through law enforcement and appropriated by political campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, though any jurist knows perfectly well that due process, impartiality and the rule-of-law demand that no class of litigants—not defendants, not campaign contributors, not law enforcement, not the DA's offices—deserve a superior place in a judge's consideration of a legal case, emphatically in the state's highest court of the land.

Justice Pat Roggensack clearly holds a different opinion.
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We have written before, 'Don’t worry about the result; just tell me what the law is.'

Such a directive ought to be the mission, objective and goal of every candidate to the justice of the state’s top appellate court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

If one were to ask candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court their commitment to the above principle, one can expect a declaration of absolute fidelity.

But you would not deduce the presence of this judicial ethos from the campaign of Pat Roggensack.

Like the others' before her, her campaign does not offer explanation of the judicial process, the nature of appellate procedures, the role of briefs and arguments in the creation of judicial policy, and the imperative to be impartial; but rather well-crafted political demagoguery.

Now, one can read about the endorsements from police associations, law enforcement officials, and District Attorneys.

What does parading these endorsements mean?

That Pat Roggensack has a disposition in favor of a particular class of litigants?

Judges are supposed to be impartial.

Roggensack should stow the likes of the law-and-order, we’re-tough rhetoric, and instead edify the electorate on the judicial processes, the function of the top appellate court in impartially 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 during the campaign, especailly the likes of Sheriff Kim Gaffney.

Club for Growth Filling WMC's Decreased Role in Supreme Court Race

Wisconsin Supreme Court - Crooked as a dog's hind leg

Update II: See Report: Madison needs to build over 1,000 rental units each year to keep up with demand (Godar, The Capital Times)

Update: Rule-of-law candidate, Ed Fallone, says he'll reverse conflict-of-interest rule written by the Wisconsin Realtors Association and the business lobbying group. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

Judith 'Judy' Faulkner is the embodiment of the American Dream.

A brilliant woman who worked her ass off at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Faulkner wrote computer code assisting medical professionals in tracking patient information.

Reportedly a woman of wide-ranging interests, the former student in the psychiatry department at UW-Madison constantly innovated her computer software, took it to the private sector and later became the founder and CEO of the giant Epic Systems Corp. of Verona, Wisconsin. [Note: Some two years ago, it was announced that Epic is going to build a huge auditorium on its Verona site. As a result, now, sources tell me the downtown condo market in Madison is finally beginning to flourish, vis a vis just three years ago in 2010. Word is new, prospective Epic employees will simply commute to Verona and live in downtown Madison and the Isthmus, and are driving the market.]

Thank you, Judy Faulkner.

One question Ms. Faulkner encountered in Wisconsin is why the Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce (WMC) sought to create a corrupt Wisconsin Supreme Court that would rubber-stamp the position of the increasingly right-wing and misogynistic Wisconsin Republican Party.

Why exactly is WMC necessarily an adjunct of the GOP and why is WMC spending some $1.8 million to install Michael Gableman to the Supreme Court like it did in 2008?

For no good cause, Faulkner apparently reasoned.

Faulkner, noting what writer, Peter Gruett described as Wisconsin's "slide toward reactionary social and fiscal policies," decided to pull Epic's business from local vendors and contractors who support WMC's bid to take over Wisconsin government, as reported by WMC Watch. [One also wonders why the Wisconsin Restaurant Association similarly supports reactionary social and fiscal policies; why running a restuarant means a woman's right to choose should no longer exist? But that's another story.]

Now, one of the four corrupt GOP justices, Justice Patience Roggensack, is running for reelection. And the WMC News page is unusually silent on the race.

But the Wisconsin Club For Growth is filling in where WMC begged out.

Reads an e-mail from United Wisconsin:

Wisconsin Club For Growth, the ultra right-wing front group funded through shady channels by wealthy billionaires like the Koch brothers, has nearly tripled their investment in Justice Roggensack's reelection.

This week, the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice reported that since the primary, the group has spent $300,000 on TV commercials alone! You see, groups like Club For Growth know that to ensure Walker's most extreme policy overreaches get a less-than fair hearing on the court, they need to maintain the status-quo by keeping the Wisconsin Supreme Court stacked with partisan judges like Roggensack.

Prof. Ed Fallone has a tough election in just one month on April 2.

The Brennan Center also notes, "In 2011, special interest groups set a new record, spending just under $3.6 million on television ads in a race that many groups sought to recast as a referendum on Governor Scott Walker. Wisconsin will likely continue to see high spending by outside groups this year."

One hopes that, like Faulkner, voters conclude there is no cause for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to function as a reactionary and corrupt institution.

One imperative is Fallone telling voters of this reality over and over.