Uppity Wisconsin

Well, well. Someone else besides me thinks last week's US Supreme Court ruling about judges hearing cases involving huge investors in their campaigns has something to do with Wisconsin, and even Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

When I wrote that the ruling meant Justices Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, both elected with millions of dollars of media from WMC, would have to recuse themselves, Rick Esenberg said I was all wet:

 Bill, in particular, when commenting on legal matters is almost universally wrong.

Of course, Esenberg -- hardly a disinterested party since he worked to elect Ziegler and Gableman -- also announced that Paul Soglin and I aren't lawyers so couldn't be expected to know anything. That was news to Soglin, who has thought he was a lawyer ever since graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1972.

Having trashed us both as know-nothings, Esenberg then backtracked about Soglin and me:

But let me grant them a point. They could turn out to be right although I think it unlikely.

I'll settle for could be right, rather than always wrong.

With that background, consider Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story:

With last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that campaign cash can taint a judge's independence, Wisconsin finds itself at the forefront of a national debate over the role and influence of money in judicial elections.

The state could be the first important test of the impact of the high court's decision, advocates on both sides of the issue say.

"There will be a real opportunity for Wisconsin to be the nation's first  . . .  laboratory," said Bert Brandenburg of Justice at Stake, a group that has criticized the increasing cost and political tenor of elections for state courts.

In a 5-4 ruling Monday, the Supreme Court said judges must recuse themselves from cases where one party has spent huge amounts of money to help them win election.

Does that make me right? Not necessarily. No one ever knows how a court will rule. But while we await the law journal article Esenberg has promised us, let's just say that Ziegler, Gableman, and the WMC are going to be under intense scrutiny, and it is not at all unlikely that one or both of them will sit out some cases WMC put them there to decide.

But what do I know? I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not trained in looking for loopholes. We'll leave that to Esenberg and the WMC lawyers.