Big Dark Out-of-State Money in the Supreme Court Race

In the wake of the recent elections for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the camps of both candidates have recriminated against each other for campaigns financed by massive amounts of dark, out-of-state money. Both sets of complaints are fully justified and reflect the appalling politicization of what, by all rights, should be the least partisan offices in the state: the impartial, unbiased, unbought, thoughtful, professional judicial tribunal of last resort.

But the position of justice has become disgustingly partisan, because the Democratic and Republican Parties have the most effective fund-raising machines, and they’re leading the big-money parade. Brian Hagedorn was a Republican operative before a courtesy appointment by Gov. Scott Walker allowed him to campaign with “Judge” in front of his name. Lisa Neubauer is the wife of a former state head of the Democratic Party and mother of a Democratic state representative. Their campaigns absolutely reeked of partisan favoritism.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and for one brief shining moment it wasn’t. In the waning years of the Doyle Administration, the Legislature adopted a plan for public financing of state Supreme Court elections. You may not remember it, because it was never put into effect; it was one of the very first laws repealed by the new Legislature after the Walker Administration took over in 2011.

That was the first year after the disastrous Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC opened the floodgates to political spending from all comers, for what purposes nobody knows, because accountability and transparency were right out the window. And now we see how fatuous was Justice Kennedy’s observation in that decision that big money in politics will lead to “neither corruption nor the appearance of corruption”.

Woe betide anyone bringing a case before the Supreme Court if the justices sitting in judgment on it are financially beholden to the opposing side instead of, as they properly should be, to the general citizenry.


The question will arise, and arise in your day, ... which shall rule — wealth or men? Which shall lead — money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?

— Edward Ryan, Chief Justice, Wisconsin Supreme Court, addressing the UW graduating class of 1873