Editorial - Supreme Court race represents a disservice to the public
Monday, March 31, 2008 10:29 AM CDT
The 2008 race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat might have been different. It might have been a whole lot more boring, but at the same time, it could have had a measure of integrity. It could have meant something.
Instead, Wisconsin citizens have been subjected to a disgusting display of conduct unbecoming any would-be judge.
We can’t offer an endorsement in this race, because the real issues haven’t been explored — and at least one candidate has conducted himself in a way that virtually disqualifies him from consideration.
Here’s the short version of what you should know:
Judge Louis Butler lost badly in an attempt to get elected to the State Supreme Court, but won an appointment from Governor Jim Doyle. His opponent, Michael Gableman, won an appointment to an open judicial position after fundraising for Governor Scott McCallum.
Gableman is being backed heavily by the state’s powerful business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which is hoping for more favorable court rulings on issues of interest to business.
And not without reason. One of the key issues is product liability. With Judge Butler’s vote forging a majority, the court expanded Wisconsin’s liability law, basically allowing lawsuits against businesses to proceed even if plaintiffs could not prove the company they were suing actually made the products that harmed the plaintiff.
The Wall Street Journal took notice, and Wisconsin’s supposedly “activist” judiciary on this issue received national attention.
There is certainly another point of view that sees Butler and the court’s view as correct.
This all sounds like good material for a genuine campaign on the issues. Only this sort of legal distinction does not resonate with the public. Instead, the 2008 Supreme Court election has been waged on innuendo, distortion and scare tactics.
At the forefront of the parade into the gutter has been Gableman and his supporters, who have tried to make it sound like Butler wants to let murderers and child molesters go free. Butler then responded with vicious attacks of his own.
The worst is a recent Gableman ad that suggested Butler as a public defender worked to let a molester go free to molest again — but it wasn’t true. Butler did not select which cases he got as a public defender, and the work he did in that case did not result in an offender going free. The offender re-offended only after serving his full term in prison.
With that ad, Gableman broke his promise to refrain from personal negative attacks. Beyond that, it appears to be a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct, which calls upon candidates for judicial office to refrain from statements “that are likely to confuse the public concerning a candidate or an opponent.” A complaint has already been filed with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission.
Gableman had a legitimate issue to bring up against Butler in his alleged judicial activism as represented by his vote on liability law expansion. Instead, he resorted to ethically questionable attacks deliberately meant to mislead.
It’s hard to support a candidate for a high court position who shows such lack of judgment. And we never heard a campaign focused on whether Butler is too extreme in his opinions on the judiciary’s role. |
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