Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler, Jr., remains Exhibit A in the drive to protect voters’ rights in state judicial elections.

After losing an election to the high court by a whopping two-to-one margin in 2000, Mr. Butler managed to finally secure a place for himself on the bench through an appointment by Gov. Jim Doyle. When it came time for Justice Butler to face the voters again this spring, the good people of Wisconsin again exercised their judgment and threw him off the court.

Now Mr. Butler is portraying himself as a martyr for consumer rights. In a revealing piece in the Wisconsin Law Journal, Citizen Butler says the election sent a message to judges: “Do not vote against business interests.”

He went on to opine: “A powerful special interest group, WMC (Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce), decided that I had to go. Because I sometimes rule in favor of consumers, that was unacceptable.” Actually, it was because he ruled in favor of trial lawyers—all the time! – that voters threw him out.

Put aside the question of whether Wisconsin’s business community—its managers, workers, and pensioners—are truly a “special-interest,” or simply the backbone of Wisconsin life and economy. The reason Mr. Butler had to go was that he arrogated to himself breathtaking legislative power that broke with precedent.

• After the Wisconsin legislature passed a statutory cap on non-economic damages in medical-malpractice cases, then-Justice Butler and his activist colleagues decided in Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patients Compensation Fund that the measure was unconstitutional. In a 4 to 3 majority, the Butler majority contended that the legislature’s reasoning was wrong.

• The same Butler majority transferred the burden of proof in lead-paint cases from plaintiffs to defendants in Thomas v. Mallett. The dissent complained that defendants “can be held liable for a product they may or may not have produced, which may or may not have caused the plaintiff’s injuries, based on conducted that may have occurred over 100 years ago…”

The first case is an example of a court fully supplanting a democratically elected legislature. The second case is an example of a court cravenly serving its trial bar supporters.

Thanks to the voters, Mr. Butler is free to be the activist he wants to be—as a private citizen!