How Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws Protect Incumbents
April 11, 2011
Interesting op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal by law professor and former U.S. Senate candidate James L. Huffman on how campaign finance disclosure laws tilt an already unlevel playing field even further toward incumbents. During his run for the Senate, Huffman found that many potential donors who were otherwise sympathetic with his positions refused to donate out of fear of retribution from sitting politicians. Business executives, who may have business pending before a federal agency or would likely be impacted by legislation, were often afraid to risk a contribution to a challenger.
“I heard these responses literally dozens of times in my campaign in Oregon. Sometimes I was told that someone on my opponent’s staff had called with a reminder that supporting me was not a good idea. Once the call came while I was having lunch with the person from whom I was soliciting support.”
While Huffman was writing about federal elections, campaign disclosure laws are also a favorite tool of the “merit” selection crowd to gag business groups and intimidate potential donors to judicial campaigns into boycotting these races. The end game, of course, is to protect judges chosen by insider, lawyer-dominated commissions and limit participation in judicial elections by ordinary citizens and pro-business groups – just another means for the Professional Left to seize control of our courts by controlling the judicial selection process.
While the public certainly has a right to know who is contributing to their public servants, campaign disclosure laws should be designed in such a way as to enhance competition in campaigns, not suppress it.
Bombshell in Wisconsin
April 8, 2011
After trailing by a razor-thin 204 votes yesterday, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser vaulted to a 7,300+ vote lead after Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus discovered that she failed to report one city’s 14,315 votes. Ramona Kitzinger – a Democrat serving on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers – appeared at the press conference with Nickolaus and backed up her account:
“We went over everything and made sure all the numbers jibed up and they did. Those numbers jibed up, and we’re satisfied they’re correct.” [As a Democrat] I’m not going to stand here and tell you something that’s not true.”
Even so, challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and Wisconsin Democrats immediately cried foul, noting that Nickolaus worked in the state Assembly Republican caucus when Prosser served as Assembly speaker and suggested they may call for an independent investigation. Liberal special interest groups, who spent millions to put Kloppenburg on the Court, were outraged, calling for Nickolaus’ computers to be “seized” and examined to see if “a crime could have occurred.”
Earlier, when it appeared Prosser might lose, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel counseled both sides to “act with grace and try to avoid making Wisconsin the Florida of 2011.” Good luck with that advice if Prosser ends up winning as now appears likely.
Still too Close to Call in Wisconsin
April 8, 2011
The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is still too close to call and likely headed for a recount. Challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg currently holds a razor-thin 204 vote lead out of nearly 1.5 million votes cast, following a multi-million dollar smear campaign against incumbent Justice David Prosser. A recount is expected to begin the week of April 18 and to be done by early May, according to a Wisconsin State Journal report.
The results will likely determine the fate of Governor Scott Walker’s union reform bill, which is currently being held up by court challenges. If Kloppenburg wins, liberals will enjoy a tenuous 4-3 majority, giving government unions the opportunity to accomplish through the courts what they could not achieve in the legislature: blocking Walker’s reforms and preserving the gold-plated pension and benefits package that threatens to bankrupt the state. The race also validates an observation by my old boss, former Michigan Governor John Engler that the best reform legislation is only as good as the latest Supreme Court decision. Business leaders and citizens nationwide who support efforts to retake control of our state governments from government unions and other special interests need to wake up to the fact that state Supreme Court races are going to be ground zero in this epic battle.
Will the Wisconsin Smear Campaign Backfire?
April 5, 2011
John Fund at the Wall Street Journal suggests that the multi-million dollar smear campaign against Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser could backfire. Fund writes that “hopefully, voters will be able to discern the truth from propaganda.”
Key word: Hopefully.
A Smear Campaign in Wisconsin
April 4, 2011
One of the schemes the Soros Institute for a Non-Democratic Judiciary (aka Justice at Stake) consistently pushes is public financing for state judicial races. In a recent press release, the group called public financing, “one of the most powerful reforms in shielding courts from special-interest influence.” After taking a look at Wisconsin and the multi-million dollar, government union-bankrolled smear campaign attacking Justice David Prosser, that quaint little claim has been exposed as utterly ludicrous.
A Politico article today suggests the “infusion of outside spending … could total as much as $5 million” in the race to unseat Prosser, which will be decided tomorrow. Government unions see the race as the last chance to undo Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s union reforms – and they’ve unleashed the goon squads on Justice Prosser. As a recipient of public financing, the Prosser campaign can only spend $400,000 in return, so groups that support union reform have stepped in to help.
All this is fine with “merit” selection proponents like the Brennan Center (supported by over $2.2 million in Soros funding). One of their spokesmen called the flood of special interest cash smearing Justice Prosser “a silver lining within some other unfortunate and troubling developments.” Why? Because outside groups and the campaigns themselves are responsible for the spending spree – as if the distinction made a whit of difference at the end of the day.
One crystal clear lesson from this Wisconsin Supreme Court race is that public financing does nothing – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – to remove politics from judicial contests.