The Wisconsin Supreme Court this week had a chance to whittle away at the influence that big money has had on court elections in recent years, but blew it.

The Wisconsin League of Women Voters had asked the court to enact rules that would require a judge or justice to recuse himself or herself from ruling on cases where one of the litigants in the past two years had contributed more than $1,000 to the judge's or justice's election campaign.

Such a rule would have gone a long way to restore confidence in the courts. Too many people now perceive that campaign contributors buy favorable rulings. Justice Annette Ziegler, for instance, only last year wrote an opinion that favored Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce just a year after WMC had spent $2 million on campaign ads favoring her election.

Additionally, the league's proposal would have served to make judicial candidates think twice about accepting huge sums of money from special interests during their election campaigns if they knew it would require them to sit out some cases. That alone could have helped reduce the ridiculous escalation of spending that has been occurring in high court races.

But, rather than take an important step to bring some orderliness to court races, four of the seven justices voted instead to adopt rules proposed by the special interests themselves -- the Wisconsin Realtors Association and WMC -- that make it clear that "endorsements, campaign contributions and independently run ads are not enough, in themselves, to force a judge off the case."

Two of the four justices who took this ridiculous step were Ziegler and Michael Gableman, who infamously received huge WMC donations during his election campaign last year. The other two who see no harm in accepting wads of special interest money are Justices David Prosser and Pat Roggensack.

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Patrick Crooks and Ann Walsh Bradley at least realize what a terrible signal their colleagues are sending the public by adopting the special interests' rule.

It was another sad day for judicial independence and a huge win for those with the bucks to buy influence.

Login to post your comment. If you don't have an account, you may register for one.