Said Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoted in "Shirley Abrahamson, longest-serving member of Wisconsin Supreme Court, dies at 87" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).
Goodbye to Shirley Abrahamson.
December 21, 2020
"Among jurists I have encountered in the United States and abroad, Shirley Abrahamson is the very best."
"As lawyer, law teacher and judge, she has inspired legions to follow in her way, to strive constantly to make the legal system genuinely equal and accessible to all who dwell in our fair land."
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The tag to Abrahamson provides fascinating background on her tenuous grasp of the law and her thirst for power. In 2015, Abrahamson sued in federal court to retain her position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, but her lawsuit was promptly dismissed. Sounds like she was RBG's soul sister. Lawfare forever!
Make the legal system genuinely equal and accessible?
I thought the ADA took care of that.
Just another leftist hack in a robe.
Her legal skills were mediocre at best, her political skills were very good and her understanding of the state of Wisconsin’s constitution was subpar. She used her power to favor her special interests and advance socialism in Wisconsin. May we never elect another like her in my or my children’s liftetime.
Birds of a feather....
And now she can be reunited with RBG.
As I understand things, the Jewish faith has no hell.
So where are we supposed to believe they are reunited?
Kind of nasty above. Roman maxim: Speak no ill of the dead.
DDB corollary: Or at least wait a decent interval.
She graduated first in her class; just like Althouse.
Former NE Chief Justice C. Thomas White passed away earlier this month. Old Irish Catholic Democrat. He was first in his class at Creighton Law. Tough guy. I used to see him at his grandkids' soccer games.
She was a lawless Justice who did everything possible to use her authority to try and stop Wisconsin’s Act 10 reforms. Abrahamson had no belief in democracy, or any respect for citizens that were not fit her world or state view. No concern for any Wisconsinite outside of Madison.
Her temper tantrum when being replaced as Chief Justice showed her true character. A less than gracious exit. She was the Helen Thomas of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She got on the Wisconsin Supreme Court via appointment by 1976 Gov. Patrick Lucey. Educated at the University of Wisconsin Law School explains her twisted view of the Judiciary. Of course she left Wisconsin and passed away in in Madison’s sister city Berkeley, CA.
Begley @ 7:42 am,
Even death is political. But you know, it wasn't the right who invented "the personal is political".
I wonder how many people RBG said that about. Or if she said it at all.
Gusty:
She was first in her class at Indiana University Law School. She taught at Wisconsin.
Maybe she was a nasty Leftist, but lighten up a bit.
But I will make an exception to my own corollary when the Clintons pass. They are pure evil.
RIP, she was a fine judge in an era when the court wasn’t influenced by million dollar investments.
And Frank Lloyd Wright.
"who dwell in our fair land"
So, no systemic racism anymore?
I still can't believe you elect judges in WI. Recipe for corruption.
In NE, the governor appoints then the judges stand for retention. No campaigns and no donations. Works great.
How am I to understand how genuinely equal and accessible is different from plain ol' "equal and accessible?" It suggests a lot of tinkering.
The article's author seems biased.
Abrahamson became chief justice in 1996 because she was the most senior member of the court. She lost that position in 2015 when voters amended the state constitution to allow the justices to choose their leader. Conservatives used that amendment to quickly name Justice Patience Roggensack as chief justice. Abrahamson sued over her removal in federal court but lost the case.
Conservatives "using" that constitution again! Was Abrahamson accused of sedition or were her lawyers threatened for bringing the challenge in court?
Some of her dissents, over time, came to be broadly adopted. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with Abrahamson’s dissent in a case over a penalty enhancer for hate speech.
Anyone know the above case? Was it Mitchell (1993)? Hate speech or speech as evidence of intent in a hate crime?
Abrahamson was a pioneer among legal thinkers in developing the idea that state constitutions could grant people more rights than those provided under the U.S. Constitution.
Wasn't that pretty standard constitutional jurisprudence by her arrival? Isn't the debate usually an interpretation question about what the state constitution actually does grant above and beyond the US Constitution?
I argued a case before Shirley and her colleagues in Nov 2018. That was at the very end of her tenure on the bench. I dont think she could hear the argument. There was something wrong with her hearing aid and she was asking her clerk for help to fix it. In any event, she never asked me any questions.
I found her personally warm and endearing. She actually reminded me of Scalia a bit. Both very short and solid physically with very bright eyes and a warm smile. She treated people kindly and, unlike Leslie Neilsen, did not mind people calling her Shirley when she was off the bench. She was very gracious with grade-school student visits to the capitol and to the Supreme Court chambers. The kids would sit in teh gallery and Shirley would come out and discuss the role of the court, solicit questions from the kids, encourage them to pursue the law as a career.
Many (most) of her opinions were unnecessarily complicated, and far too verbose. She used 50,000 words when 500 would do. But maybe that's just me, from the Caveman Lawyer school, unable to comprehend the layered brilliance of what I was reading. She definitely had an agenda.
She was an important person in Wisconsin history.
If Shirley Abrahamson was the ne plus ultra of jurists, RBG, then why was she not on the US Supreme Court? (I concede, though, that such thinking reminds me of the old question If they're such a great writer, why aren't they writing for The New Yorker?).
Did she stand against "hate" speech laws and urge that using hatred as an enhancer was patently unconstitutional?
If not, then fuck her stupid political posturing from the bench.
Those are bad laws that have acted to keep blacks incarcerated for longer periods.
Are we not doing racial complaints about Democraticals any more?
The Right should force the Left to live up to its own rules.
And also mock the Left for its internal contradictions.
---
Dave Begley,
There is a single set of rules and your enemies get a vote.
That the rule you espouse would be better is not in question.
But the Left has established the rule we now apply.
"Liberal judicial thinking" is really quite simple. It has only a single premise: If a judge believes a "right" claimed by a party is a "right" that all correct thinking people believe is a "right" that should be in the constitution, then, ipso facto, that "right" is in the constitution.
I'd be interested in what Justice Scalia thought of Abrahamson in order to form a balanced opinion of her judicial temperament.
Perhaps more telling would be what Justice Abrahamson thought of Justice Scalia.
She was not a judge when she died.
She lost her court case when she sued to get her seat back.
Her case was that the Wisconsin Constitution gave her a lifetime appointment. it was right there in Article LXVII.
Where she found the basis for all of her rulings. That is why they were so long.
Abrahamson was a pioneer among legal thinkers in developing the idea that state constitutions could grant people more rights than those provided under the U.S. Constitution. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
They should have added that sometimes the language of the two constitutions are identical when this happens. California has been at it for some time.
MadisonMan said...
If Shirley Abrahamson was the ne plus ultra of jurists, RBG, then why was she not on the US Supreme Court?
As a liberal, not Ivy League for starters.
Exceptionally bright, with a great sense of humor, she certainly was a pathfinder for women in the law.
It was a different time when she graduated from law school. My wife graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota law school towards the top of the class in 1975.
Clerking for a big downtown law firm in Minneapolis, I remember her recounting a lunch in which all of the law clerks were invited to lunch at the Minneapolis club. The male associates accompanied her through the kitchen because females could not enter the club through the front door. If memory is correct, Muriel Humphrey barged through the front door, and the rules were changed shortly thereafter.
Many people nowadays forget those times.
Say what you wish, but I certainly miss reading her opinions.
RIP.
If RBG liked her, she must have been (judiciously speaking) a train wreck.
Given that RBG endorsement, one must assume this is a huge improvement to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
I didn't think the Constitution granted rights.
"If Shirley Abrahamson was the ne plus ultra of jurists, RBG, then why was she not on the US Supreme Court?"
She was on the short list when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was chosen.
It's unusual for a state court judge to get appointed to the Supreme Court.
@Althouse, thanks for the answer! I wasn't in WI at the time, so wasn't aware. I'll guess that factoid made the local paper though.
"Ann Althouse said...
She was on the short list when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was chosen."
No she wasn't. Clinton offered the position to Mario Cuomo, who at first accepted but then changed his mind. And then lot's of people, but no Shirley. Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg
Wisconsin Justice Prosser called Abrahamson "a total bitch" but later apologized for saying she was "a total bitch," after she criticized a decision he authored. But he also put another female justice in a brief choke hold during an argument, so he perhaps is not the best source for reviews of his fellow justices.
"mikee said...
Wisconsin Justice Prosser called Abrahamson "a total bitch" but later apologized for saying she was "a total bitch," after she criticized a decision he authored. But he also put another female justice in a brief choke hold during an argument, so he perhaps is not the best source for reviews of his fellow justices."
No he didn't.
I think this Clinton shortlist stuff is just a sop to Shirley...it ties into the Ginsberg thing and who cares.
But it's bullshit. It's almost 100% Madison media and I can't find a single reference from or close to the 1993 timeline. Nothing quoted from Clinton. Actually nothing quoted from anybody. Well, accept Althouse.
As I understand things, the Jewish faith has no hell.
So where are we supposed to believe they are reunited?
Kaplan’s Deli, where the only dish on the menu is liver and onions...
I thought she was dead.
In the fawning AP article I saw in the St. Paul paper, she was credited with allowing lawsuits against paint manufacturing companies without any corresponding measure of real liability for the injury to plaintiffs, thus causing the little regional paint manufacturers (like Mautz Paint in Madison) to go belly up with only national brands surviving. She literally fucked her own adopted town and the jobs it had provided.
Oh, haven't been here in a while.
How about that? Well, bye.
Just think Althouse, nobody not on this site or reading local WI news would have ever known this.
And when you go, you won't even get that much notice. Do you have a breakglass for Meade or the kids to admin the blog in case you should cash in suddenly? Or will the posts just stop one day?
Ah, back to moderation. But this is an old post; I had to go back a ways to find anything interesting.
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