Writes Michelle Goldberg in "This Election Could Be the Beginning of the End of Scott Walker’s Legacy in Wisconsin" (NYT).
See, this is a judicial election, Kelly said, his voice oozing with condescension. “You should be talking about things that the courts do.” On the trail, Kelly refers to his opponent as “Politician Protasiewicz” and claims that she’ll replace the rule of law with the “Rule of Janet.”...
The current Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Jill Karofsky, who beat Kelly when he ran to retain his seat in 2020, was in the audience at the debate, and found his pretensions to neutrality risible. “Kelly always ruled in favor of the right-wing special interests,” Karofsky told me. “He was put on the court to carry the water of the right wing, and he did that job phenomenally.”...
Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, pointed out that in 2019, Lisa Neubauer, the Democratic-leaning Supreme Court candidate, ran a largely nonpartisan race focused on her experience and qualifications.
“In the final stretch of that campaign, the Republican apparatus came in with the singular goal of getting every Republican to vote for the conservative candidate,” said Wikler, knowing that Neubauer “hadn’t made a partisan appeal to Democrats to counterbalance that.” Though Neubauer had been ahead in internal polls, she lost by 5,981 votes. “That was probably the last election in which someone tries to run a campaign that isn’t explicit about the values of the candidate,” Wikler said.
Notice how Wikler shifts from talking about the Republicans' get-out-the-vote effort to the idea that Democratic judicial candidates are going to have to campaign on partisan political issues. The tradition in Wisconsin is for judicial races to be nonpartisan and for judges — no matter how much we may expect them to decide cases in accordance with left/right politics — to speak of their dedication to neutral principles.
Wikler seems to assume that direct political statements will work better, Democrats need to do what will work, and just getting out the vote will not work — not for Democrats anyway. But what if overt policy campaigning offends voters? Kelly is campaigning on the idea that it is offensive, that judges are supposed to act like judges. I'm guessing Wikler — and plenty of other people — think that's naive. But it is what the general public tends to believe — or to want as an ideal — and it might be a disaster for Democrats to cede the high ground to conservatives.
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66 comments:
Progressives and their regressive, divisive ways will see to it.
1. Michelle Goldberg of the NYT is not credible.
2. I've banged this drum before, but WI needs to get rid of judicial elections. Do it like Nebraska does. The Governor appoints and then the judges stand for retention.
If I'm a trial court judge and some law firm has given me big money for my campaign, it's only human nature to favor that firm. Same deal with appellate court judges.
And, I'm sorry, there are very, very few overtly political cases in NE appellate courts. Lots of criminal, juvenile (!) and regular civil cases although there was one interesting one today where a bank auditor got fired from his job for posting nasty comments about the Mayor of Omaha. Another crazed Dem.
What Soros wants, Soros gets.
If they want to implement policy, let them run for political office. Ah, but that's too cumbersome and unpredictable. You need to persuade every day. Running for judge only means you need to persuade (and not even very well, if you get in the right party pocket) once. Then you can rule by judicial fiat, untouched for as long as your term lasts.
So many want power to do "good". So few are good enough to trust with power.
Chicago, senate, shades of Obama and what was her name?
“Wikler seems to assume that direct political statements will work better, Democrats need to do what will work, and just getting out the vote will not work — not for Democrats anyway.”
If getting out the vote won’t work, what is the alternative? Creating fake votes? The Democrats are being very blunt and open in their actions. I think these tactics work best if hidden, don’t let people know you are manipulating them, like, cool the 3 donation per hour by old people money laundering, perhaps. Regular folks eventually become critical of power plays, even if they excite your base in the short term.
If Trump is charged for an old campaign violation it will stink more when the Democrats get away with it.
Paywalled. Did her physical of her ex husband come up? Or her lenient treatment of other violent offenders get mentioned?
If people in Winsconsin think that electing judges is non-partisan, and that judges are neutral and objective, maybe they should wake up and smell the coffee. Or in this case, the bullshit.
The Liberal/left used to be sneaky, they'd PRETEND to rule on the merits and be objective, but it was all just a game. They decided the result based on politics and then came up with some "Objective" legal mumbo jumbo to justify it.
Look at the SCOTUS, when is the last time a Democrat nominted judge EVER crossed the aisle to join with 4 conservative justices to decide a case? I'll 30 years ago, and that's being generous. Meanwhile, the R's were Always crossing and joining with the Liberal/left bloc to give them a win.
In the recent Winsconsin Supreme's vote on 2020 election fraud, how many D judges voted with Trump or the R's? None. The never do.
What Federal lbieral/left federal appeals or district judge ever gave Trump a win in 4 years as POTUS? You tell me.
The Courts are politics by other means. If you don't like that, change the system.
I agree with that opinion from the little I know about Wisconsin politics. It seems more and more that the left is winning and I don't know why. Logic and reason should be enough to defend sanity but perhaps not.
I'm missing the pivot. How does the Republican Party apparatus get out the vote for the conservative voting the Republican line?
Oh Look! A hit piece on Wisconsin Republicans in the NYTimes!
Scott Walker left office pre-COVID. That's a lifetime ago. And yet he's still ringing in the ears of partisan Democrats in New York.
We are inundated with mailers every day from Janet. All are direct political appeals, nearly all abortion-related. Janet has promised, see, to declare abortion legal, a right that all (including infants, old people and men) will not only have but will celebrate and soon be required to pay for and participate in. She is utterly unfit for the court, yet she will likely win. Wisconsin voters love to elect women appellate judges. 6 of 7 on the Supreme Court are women now, and 8 of 16 on the court of appeals are women.
Janet has also promised to declare Act 10 unconstitutional and rewrite the state's electoral boundaries. She's a leftist's dream, the perfect judge. Not very bright but committed to true lefty causes.
Kelly does not do himself any favors by his ultra-conservatism. He's a bit of a freak that way. Jennifer Dorow would have wiped janet out, but Kelly got the far right to support him, as he is the true believer, and I think that purity test will prove to be a mistake.
Smell the Soros money?
I have no doubt that Protasiewicz will prevail and your court will lurch hard left. Good luck Wisconsin.
Wouldn't any overt political statement from a judge just force them to recuse themselves from any case that would be pertinent to the statement? It would seem to actually be a self-neutralizing approach to running for a judge-ship (or at least it should).
WELL! if Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, says we should be non-partisan*
I'm sure, He'd know best!
non-partisan* this does mean Anti-Republican/Pro-Democrat doesn't it?
i seriously Doubt, that Mr Wikler need worry about the result..
EVERY democrat in Wisconsin will have a vote cast for them (at LEAST one vote);
and MANY republican's won't even vote once (at least, not have a vote COUNTED)
Isn't Democracy GREAT????
Sell your house and get out while you can, is my advice.
I like to recall that Walker only won election because the Dems reported their total vote count thinking they'd reported enough to win the election. Then the vote counters discovered one heavily pro Walker precinct (or County? City?) had not been tabulated. And Walker was elected governor.
Does anyone think the same vote tally, a losing vote tally for Democrats, would have been reported had the total Republican vote count been reported first?
Walker's legacy began with him winning through an accident of vote reporting. And people wonder why Hillary never visited the state in 2016. She thought she didn't have to, to win.
At least WI still has contested judicial elections. Most of the WA judicial elections are unopposed incumbents. The Democrats have developed a system to install Democrat judges. A judge resigns after the election filing period or at least a year before the filing period. The the Democrat governor appoints a replacement judge. Come election time, that appointed judge is the incumbent and is likely to be unopposed. Lawyers are afraid to run against an incumbent judge because the judge could hold a grudge. So we have a monoculture judiciery.
What does a political loser say?
"We just didn't do a good job of getting our message out."
"Kelly inveighed against Protasiewicz for speaking in terms of policy outcomes"
He "inveighed," did he. So actually he inveighed against the destruction of the system.
"Kelly said, his voice oozing with condescension."
Does Janet deserve respect? Why?
"Notice how Wikler shifts from talking about the Republicans' get-out-the-vote effort to the idea that Democratic judicial candidates are going to have to campaign on partisan political issues."
Yes, we notice. Republicans did it first! Dems have to be partisan! They can't help it!
"The tradition in Wisconsin is for judicial races to be nonpartisan and for judges — no matter how much we may expect them to decide cases in accordance with left/right politics — to speak of their dedication to neutral principles."
Well, that's bye-bye to one more tradition.
"Wikler seems to assume that direct political statements will work better, Democrats need to do what will work, and just getting out the vote will not work — not for Democrats anyway."
A little obfuscation on his part there. Appealing to values and promising outcomes is itself a GOTV effort.
"But what if overt policy campaigning offends voters?"
Which voters exactly? Maybe Althouse and a half dozen others? Could still make the difference in WI though.
"But it is what the general public tends to believe — or to want as an ideal — and it might be a disaster for Democrats to cede the high ground to conservatives."
But then, according to the Althouse theorem, people don't believe what they profess to believe.
Ah, the old "beginning of the end", yet it never seems to end. I think the big news is a debate between judicial candidates that attracted a standing-room-only crowd.
I'm guessing Wikler — and plenty of other people — think that's naive.
I'm guessing Wikler- and plenty of other people - more likely think it's dishonest and hypocritical.
My cynicism is at record high levels, so I'll go on record predicting you're wrong, with 80% confidence.
Althouse I do believe that you are taking Kelly literally, and unfortunately not seriously.
I call bullshit on Kelly; he was a fake-electors-scheme advisor in December of 2020. He was putting rank partisan politics above the rule of law.
And Althouse; I remember so clearly our many Althouse.blogspot comments discussions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court way back in the Walker/Gableman/Prosser/Bradley/Abrahamson days of yore. Wherein I was almost always on the Walker/Republican side. But these are the days of Trumpism. All bets are off. All partisan loyalty is gone.
Holding judicial elections is just asking for this type of political campaigning.
is WI no longer flyover country?
why so much attention from NYT to happenings there?
Althouse reflexively sides with the looney lefty. Because of course she does.
The entire premise of the concept of a judicial system is that it must be neutral and committed to objective interpretation of the laws. This is clearly no longer the case in the U.S. Supreme Court, and evidently also not the case in Wisconsin. This is depressing. No nation or state can continue to function indefinitely with this kind of adversarial politization of its judicial system. Disputes will lead to tit-for-tat actions that will spiral out of control and eventually lead to violence.
Unfortunately I see no leader in sight who has the slightest chance of bringing the sides together and returning the judiciary at least to some semblance of neutrality, and regaining the confidence and support of the general public. This is a truly existential crisis.
But only the reputed right-wing candidate was at fault, right? Because the left's candidate used measured tones. God, you sheep are ignorant.
If you want to make laws through the courts, then disband the executive and legislative branches. If you want oligarchy, then do oligarchy.
She lost me at "oozing with condescension."
"The current Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Jill Karofsky, who beat Kelly when he ran to retain his seat in 2020, was in the audience at the debate, and found his pretensions to neutrality risible. “Kelly always ruled in favor of the right-wing special interests,” Karofsky told me. "
WTF?
I've got to hand it to Michelle Goldberg, no one writes brain dead crap like she does.
There are 7 members of the Count, not just 1.
The current Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who is being replaced in this election is Justice Patience Drake Roggensack.
The fact that Karofsky was sitting the the audience for the debate and snarking to Michelle Goldberg about one of the candidates tells us all that Jill Karofsky is a politician, not a judge
But it is what the general public tends to believe — or to want as an ideal — and it might be a disaster for Democrats to cede the high ground to conservatives
The Democrats have spent the years since Trump was elected ceding every single "high ground" to the Republicans, as they embrace destruction of free speech, sterilizing children, and ending parents rights.
Given the results of the 2022 elections, I think it's quite reasonable of them to believe that their voters are amoral power-hungry scum (see Fetterman, Biden), and that therefore there's no point in wasting their time pretending about their being for anything other than power for their side.
You're free to fight to prove them wrong. But you do that by saying "Janet Protasiewicz is a power-hungry monster who should not be elected to any judicial office."
You don't fight for the high ground by being sad that the Democrats no longer care about it, but then remaining neutral in the race
Hard to believe no comments on this at 12:35 PST! Ms. Althouse must be working hard to vet comments!
But what if overt policy campaigning offends voters?
It won't offend liberal Wisconsin voters. The promises of a political Judge Karen with a bad haircut and a horrible wardrobe is music to their ears.
Since 2011, Wisconsin Liberals have wanted Act 10 and Walker's reforms overturned by the courts...recall...any way possible.
IL lockdown Gov Pritzker game the judge Janet campaign $1 Million.
Wisconsin is about to become Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. We used to be a Midwest safe haven thanks to the WOW counties.
I think we're fucked thanks to Madison, Milwaukee, and college educated white women.
Might have to move to Oklahoma or Kansas.
Kelly is being a hypocrite here. No (or previous few)Democrats in Wisconsin believe that he is being sincere. He’s expecting Democrats to rise to a standard he didn’t have himself. He was supremely political throughout this career. We all saw it and heard it. Of course we all know the politics of the WI Supreme Court justices and candidates. If Kelly thinks we don’t know that Supreme Court Justices, both here in WI and in the USSC are political, he is being the naive one, or more likely insincere and it shows. No one is fooled. I hope he loses in a landslide.
Scott Walker will always have Act 10 as his legacy. And that is a wonderful thing.
This post seems to me to be closing a barn door after the horse is gone. No high information voter is under any illusion that this is actually a non partisan race. Given the fact of gerrymandering, the Republican's efforts to throw out the 2020 results, led by a former Supreme Court Justice (1), and now the post Roe significance of abortion, how could they believe otherwise? If low information voters believe otherwise, aren't they acting under an illusion that can only hurt them and democracy? Who believes that an informed electorate is a bad thing? Certainly not Althouse!
The post also falsely implies that the left is doing policy campaigning, and the right is not. But the portions of the article that are not quoted show that both sides are campaigning on policy, and that to the extent he needs to do so, Kelly is constantly signaling where he is and will remain on abortion and gerrymandering.
So to turnout. Wisconsin is a state that is so closely divided in state wide elections that turnout really matters. But turnout, particularly in an off election year, is not just a function of knocking on doors. It also depends on whether people can see the stakes for themselves. Kelly is a known quantity for Republicans--even so their mailers are constantly stressing abortion. They are doing that to juice turnout among their low information voters. If the Dems are responding with the message they need to turn out their low information voters, shouldn't that be applauded?
I don't like either one but I feel it's my civic duty to vote. Therefore I will hold my nose and cast my vote for the one who professes to judge according to the law and not their personal political beliefs.
I hate elections like this where both candidates stink!!
STFU Inga. How are Chuck and Inga still here, but Achilles is banned? We live in a fascist dictatorship, and the Cruelly Neutral have their thumb on the scales of justice, but we can pretend we have balance, right? I'm ashamed to be living in America.
“Wisconsin is about to become Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. We used to be a Midwest safe haven thanks to the WOW counties.”
Intelligent conservatives even in the WOW counties aren’t voting for Republicans the way they used to, thank you Donald Trump! If Wisconsin becomes more like Minnesota, Michigan and even Illinois that would be a huge improvement.
Why do we allow out-of-state entities to fund political candidates? What's the justification for that?
I could vote either way, I'll be voting against the candidate who most clutters my mailbox with false and misleading flyers. That would the party with the most money to burn meddling in other's elections. So far it's not even close There are only three mailing dates left.
Serious Question:
once Protasiewicz is installed...
How long before your Wisconsin Supreme Court declares that your Right to Work law is unconstitutional?
Narayanan said...
is WI no longer flyover country?
why so much attention from NYT to happenings there?
--
See 2024 and the dismantling of any election integrity controls they want. This is how they get it without winning legislature.
Chuck's cool with that.
Conserving Conservatism and all that...
We're citing Michelle Goldberg now - to start intelligent conversation?
agree with that opinion from the little I know about Wisconsin politics. It seems more and more that the left is winning and I don't know why. Logic and reason should be enough to defend sanity but perhaps not.
It is because nice, moderately liberal, upper middle class White women (like Althouse) refuse to vote for the "bad boyfriend" conservatives. That leaves an open field for the idiots like Inga and her ilk to run the tables.
Wisconsin is the only Great Lakes state that has GOP legislative majorities in both houses. If Protasiewicz wins, time to take the gloves off and begin impeachment proceedings immediately--not only against her, but also against a couple of her colleagues.
I'm guessing she will win, as Kelly and his supporters are late getting into the game. I read that they just starting running commercials accusing her of being soft on crime. Great move when thousands of harvested ballots are already in the can.
And on Tuesday, I expect Brandon Johnson to win in Chicago as well. The unpleasant reality is that this is a left-wing country that is totally on board with crime, drag queen story hours for kids, and all other forms of degeneracy. We're not voting our way out of this.
Team Janet's basically been hammering on abortion on every media.
Who cares about the legislatur or shit like process.
They want what they want, dammit!!
Stab 'em or jab'em.
You can bet if Kelly had familial accusations of spousal abuse or drunken behavior, he'd have to pay for it in the media.
Not Janet.
Chuck's cool with that!
Conserving Conservatism!!
Illinois is essentially bankrupt.
Illinoians are moving to Wisconsin...and some are dumb enough to repeat their voting Dem preference.
Inga is cool with that.
Because...Truuuuuump!
"If Wisconsin becomes more like Minnesota, Michigan and even Illinois that would be a huge improvement."
Inga
Move. That would be a huge improvement.
Forget 2024. this is the most important election in the country. The voting system is at stake. cheating will be legal.
“STFU Inga. How are Chuck and Inga still here, but Achilles is banned? We live in a fascist dictatorship, and the Cruelly Neutral have their thumb on the scales of justice, but we can pretend we have balance, right? I'm ashamed to be living in America.”
Goodbye, don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you leave.
Intelligent conservatives even in the WOW counties aren’t voting for Republicans the way they used to, thank you Donald Trump! If Wisconsin becomes more like Minnesota, Michigan and even Illinois that would be a huge improvement.
I live in Minnesota. It’s not better here in any way.
Inga likes her corrupt lying leftist overlords.
We are all so shocked.
"If Wisconsin becomes more like Minnesota, Michigan and even Illinois that would be a huge improvement."
Inga
If Illinois is the standard you aspire to, you are truly an idiot. The taxpayers owe more to the public pension accounts than can ever be paid. Let that sink into your gin addled mind. There are, literally, not enough people in the state of Illinois to pay the taxes needed to fund our public pensions. By any accounting metric the state is broke. The state routinely stiffs contractors to the point where a percentage is asked for up front. Some of the highest taxes in the nation.
I grew up and we'd go vacationing in Wisconsin every summer. Usually Minoqua, but had a great aunt near Oshkosh, and we'd go to other places. Loved it all.
Now you couldnt pay me to live there.
Russia Collusion Truther and Hillary/FBI Hoax Dossier Dead Ender Inga: "Goodbye, don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you leave."
Its quite clear, as evidenced by resident dolt Inga and Violent Homosexual Rape Fantasist Chuck's postings after being banned, that if Achilles chooses to continue posting he obviously can.
Its quite on message and very much on brand for the previously banned Inga to push a two-tiered ban policy where the banned democraticals can continue to post but a banned non-democratical should just go away.
In Inga's defense, she quite literally cannot recall things that happened more than 15 minutes ago, which explains so many of her hilarious self-owns.
Butkus51 said...
"I grew up and we'd go vacationing in Wisconsin every summer. Usually Minoqua, but had a great aunt near Oshkosh, and we'd go to other places. Loved it all.
Now you couldnt pay me to live there."
I'm still in Illinois and I'd love to live up there. Winters included.
You first, Fuhrer Inga
Inga said...
Kelly is being a hypocrite here. No (or previous few)Democrats in Wisconsin believe that he is being sincere. He’s expecting Democrats to rise to a standard he didn’t have himself. He was supremely political throughout this career. We all saw it and heard it.
1: I note ing does not provide even ONE example of Kelly "being political"
Which tells us that even Inga knows the claim is crap
2: The entire point of a "Living Constitution" is to establish that there are no actual rules that bind judges, other than their person politics and personal belief about what they can currently get away with.
So when a Leftist says "all judges are political" what they mean is "all our judges are political, and like a thief who thinks the whole world is corked, I therefore claim the same is true about everyone else"
Stephen said...
This post seems to me to be closing a barn door after the horse is gone. No high information voter is under any illusion that this is actually a non partisan race.
That's true. the Democrat "judges" are all politicians in black robes who refuse to be bound by anything other than their own personal desires.
So Democrats vote for the Democrat judge because they like power hungry monsters who are "on their side", and Republicans vote against the Democrat judges because the GOP voters value the rule of law, and know the Democrats hate it
Given the fact of gerrymandering
Which has existed for the entirety of the American experiment, and the Democrats have been hugely in love with every place it helped them
the Republican's efforts to throw out the 2020 results
You mean the Democrats successful effort to steal the 2020 election with massive numbers of "permanently disabled" voters who didn't have to provide a photo ID to prove they were an actual, valid, voter?
and now the post Roe significance of abortion
Where the Democrats are attempting to use black robed thugs to force their political desires on the people of WI, despite having no legal, Constitutional or moral justification
If low information voters believe otherwise, aren't they acting under an illusion that can only hurt them and democracy?
So it "hurts democracy" to keep of the "Court" a person who will stamp all over the results of democratic votes and push in the left wing agenda instead?
Is the situation that you're a complete and utter moron and ignoramus who has no idea what "democracy" actual is? (Hint: "democracy" does NOT equal "my side always wins")
Or is it that you're just an amoral lying weasel?
The post also falsely implies that the left is doing policy campaigning, and the right is not. But the portions of the article that are not quoted show that both sides are campaigning on policy, and that to the extent he needs to do so, Kelly is constantly signaling where he is and will remain on abortion and gerrymandering.
So Kelly is campaigning on the position that he will follow the actual written law and written WI and US Constitutions! the horror!
Please point us to the part of the written WI Constitution that you "think" bans laws against abortion.
If you can't, then Kelly running on "I'm not going to strike down WI abortion laws, and she will" is the exact same thing as Keely running on "I value the law, and she values nothing other than her personal political beliefs."
If I run on the campaign platform "we're going to teach kids that 1 + 1 = 2", and you run on the platform "we're going to teach kids that 1 + 1 = 3 when that's what the Party needs it to be", then I am running on a platform of Math, and you are running on a platform of "personal politics uber alles".
Democrats gerrymandered WI for decades. Then they lost in 2010 anyway, and now the GOP gets their turn.
Leaving aside the fact that sticking all the city voters together, all the suburb voters together, and all the rural voters together is the right thing to do in a representative democracy, and the fact that all the Democrat "end gerrymandering" demands boil down to creating districts where monolithic block city voters get districts where they have just enough of them there that they can swamp out what all the other voters want, and so therefore the Democrat position is evil as well as wrong, the Democrat position is wrong.
Because if gerrymandering were actually a violation of the WI State Constitution, it would have been found so back when the democrats were doing it.
Got anything else? Got ANYTHING where the Democrat position is based on the actual written laws and written Constitutions, rather than on your personal political desires?
@RobC— Don’t you know that recusal is a special policy that only applies to Clarence Thomas? What’s the problem?
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