I don’t want to bury the lede, so just check this out from Republican Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser:
As the deeply divided state Supreme Court wrestled over whether to force one member off criminal cases last year, Justice David Prosser exploded at Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson behind closed doors, calling her a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy” her. …
“In a fit of temper, you were screaming at the chief; calling her a ‘bitch,’ threatening her with ‘…I will destroy you’; and describing the means of destruction as a war against her ‘and it won’t be a ground war,'” [Justice Ann Walsh] Bradley wrote in a Feb. 18, 2010, e-mail to Prosser and others.
Prosser acknowledged his outburst, but said he was justified – and then proceeded to blame it on the woman he had verbally assaulted:
“I probably overreacted, but I think it was entirely warranted…. They (Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley) are masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements. This is bullying and abuse of very, very long standing.”
Ordinarily, a state supreme court race would be a bit too down in the weeds even for SSP, but the April 5th contest between Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg has special resonance. Prosser is part of the court’s 4-3 conservative bloc – a bloc whose control over the court could be erased with a Kloppenburg victory. While the election is officially non-partisan, I haven’t hesitated to pin party labels on Prosser: He was a Republican member of the state Assembly for almost two decades, and even served as Speaker for a time. He’s been a consistent right-wing vote on the court, and went so far as to say he deserved re-election because he’d be a Scott Walker lackey:
Our campaign efforts will include building an organization that will return Justice Prosser to the bench, protecting the conservative judicial majority and acting as a common sense compliment [sic] to both the new administration and legislature.
The “new administration and legislature” Prosser is referring to of course means Walker and the Republican-controlled state Senate and Assembly. Walker’s union-busting legislation will ver likely come before the high court, and Prosser recently went even further and accused his opponents of wanting “someone on the Court who will be an almost automatic vote against anything that comes out of the new legislature” – which of course can only suggest he thinks he’s just the opposite.
Kloppenburg is relying on public financing, which means she cannot accept monetary donations. Fortunately, third-party groups are springing into action, including the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee, which is up with an ad hitting the themes I’ve discussed here:
Prosser himself is already on the air, and right-wing groups are sure to fire back (the Club for Growth spent $321K during the primary). This will be a hard race to win, but it’s an important one to focus on.
P.S. One site you should definitely be following for more on this race is Illusory Tenant.