Cheesy Judges (Wisconsin No Less)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 21 April 2007 | JOHN FUND

[shrinkermd]

Last year, candidates for state supreme court seats spent a combined $40 million nationwide. Earlier this month, a whopping $6 million was spent to win a single vacant seat on Wisconsin's state Supreme Court...

...The outlays in the Badger State came after a remarkable string of state Supreme Court decisions showing that the court didn't recognize many limits to its own power. And these decisions came as an extension of a long-standing battle between conservatives and liberals in the state.

...The contest for the vacant seat was between Annette Ziegler, a county judge favored by business groups, and Linda Clifford, an immigration lawyer with close ties to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Ms. Ziegler won 58% of the vote on April 3 after campaigning against a series of rulings that had rattled the state's business and medical communities with their creative interpretation of the law. She claimed her opponent would make the court even more activist, since they were competing for the seat of a retiring conservative justice. Ms. Clifford herself acknowledged: "I am willing to let the [state] constitution breathe and reflect what society needs in any given context."

[shrinkermd]

When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers a minority of us were favorable to her nomination. The reason we gave was that SCOTUS was nothing more than a super parliament and it was time to have a woman evangelical on the court.

Scandalized by this nomination POTUS did withdraw it. I note that even in Wisconsin people now recognize the political nature of the courts. If nothing else both parties note that they must win to have their "political views" not the Constitution reign supreme.

[UB355]

Annette Ziegler’s opponent was an ACLU attorney, even Wisconsin voters realized what a disaster would have ensued had Annette Ziegler not been elected.

[alloysteel]

“Even” in Wisconsin? I say, ESPECIALLY in Wisconsin. That is where the Progressive Party was INVENTED, for cat’s sake!

Teddy Roosevelt only BECAME a Progressive after the movement became half-way respectable in the days of Robert LaFollette, around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

For years, there was no Dem’crat party in Wisconsin because its functions were so admirably filled by the Progressive Party, which for many years was a wing of the Republicans.

The Progressives became so riddled with Communists and Socialists in the 1930’s and 1940’s, though, it finally had to disband. Most of the old Progressives then became Dem’crats, and formed the first state party since the time of the Civil War to bear the designation.

[Jacquerie]

“Annette Ziegler’s opponent was an ACLU attorney”

I still do not understand how the Pubbies let the femi-nazi and ACLU lead attorney, Ruth Buzzi Ginsberg to the Scotus. Her stand up dissent to the partial birth abortion law displayed to all why these people are a danger to our republic.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Frank Zeidler was Mayor of Milwaukee from 1948-1960. He was the last in a string of 12 socialist mayors.

Regards,
GtG

PS Wisconsin has a long tradition of loonie-left politics!

[sergeantdave]

Maier was the last of the somewhat conservative and sane Milwaukee mayors. His hatred of the leftist press, especially the Milwaukee Journal, was legendary.