Blaming Voters In Wisconsin
Jun 18th, 2008 | By Dan Pero | Category: Judicial Elections, State Battlegrounds, Wisconsin |
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Charles Sykes just came out with a terrific new report – “Don’t Blame the Voters for the Ugly Election for the High Court” – published by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Sykes neatly shreds every argument in favor of ending judicial elections.
Read the whole report, but here are a few highlights:
“But most of the proposed ‘reforms’ miss the point. The fault here lies not with the public or even the ‘interest groups,’ but rather with the justices themselves. When judges act like politicians, the judicial selection process – elected or appointed – becomes increasingly political. Action and reaction. The politicization of the court led to the politicization of the elections for justices.”
“When Butler came on the court in 2004, he and other members of the newly-created liberal majority could have been cautious and incrementalist in their rulings. Instead, they moved hard left, aggressively ignoring precedent and substituting their judgment for legislative decisions and acting as a ’super-legislature.’ On issues ranging from crime to tort litigation, the court’s sweeping departures from past practices drew national attention, and ultimately changed the nature of elections for justices.”
“Butler was appointed to the job after having been explicitly rejected by the voters. [Gov.] Doyle named him to the high court despite and quite possibly in open defiance of the verdict of the electorate in 2000, when Butler lost a race for the seat by a 2-to-1 margin. In effect, Doyle’s appointment (which required no confirmation by any elected or unelected body) overturned the clear results of the election.”
“When justices arrogate political policymaking to themselves, they should not be surprised when they are held to the same standards as politicians….By acting as super-legislators and super-governors, they transformed elections for the court into the sorts of campaigns associated with heated contests for legislative seats and the governor’s chair.”
Perhaps nothing better defines the self serving, “both sides against the middle” and “both sides of the fence” value system of the advertisement -, and drama driven “Commercialized Watchdog” media than this case. The media owe’s it’s success and it’s survival –, up to a point -, to “conservative special interest” adverting revenue. Consequently the media is commercially compelled to “curry the favor and champion the cause of “those conservative special interests” by –, among other things -, lambasting the “liberal” voters who believe in and demand the right to vote judges in -, and out of office.
But in order to peddle their papers -, which contain the lucrative classified and display advertisements of the “conservative special interests” –, which are the “bread and butter of the media” -, the media also has to “champion the cause of “the little guy liberal voter” and “sucker them into buying their product”–, in order to see and read those ads.. Now that is “two stranded tight rope performance” that no one else -, except the lawyers, judges and politicians has been able to master so far. Come to think of it, I wonder if the American Trial Lawyers Association and the U. S.Chamber of Commerce share joint ownership, administration and control of the media.
Ivan L. Fail
Sparta, Missouri
[…] they are held to the same standards as politicians.” [Wisconsin Policy Research Institute via American Courthouse; I said that, […]
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