THE ISTHMUS DESIGNS COVER WITHOUT READING OWN COVER STORY
HEADER READS "BRADLEY V. KLOPPENBURG IS A CLASSIC CONTEST BETWEEN TWO VISIONS OF THE ROLE OF LAWโ
STORY EXPLAINS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE
The Isthmusโ cover story this week is a hit job on conservative judge Rebecca Bradley, who is the incumbent running for State Supreme Court. And thatโs totally fine - Bradley is just another puppet for business interests. Sheโs hoping to be elected on the strength of her appeal to Christian fundamentalists and the white populationโs widespread racism, so that she can help the court pave a legal path for the neoliberal agenda advanced by Scott Walker.
I mean, there are problems with the article - it accepts an insulated political framework where โliberalโ will always mean โNot Republicanโ - but we can talk about that later, Isthmus. For now, can we just talk about the cover?ย
This is not โa classic contest between two visions of the role of lawโ. Did you find some sort of niche automatic headline generator online? A clash between โtwo visions of the role of lawโ is exactly the way Bradley is trying to frame the race. Her whole thing is to claim sheโs above politics and has a different judicial philosophy than Kloppenberg, so that people wonโt think about her actual politics when they vote. The whole point of the article is to debunk that framework. Quote: โThe race...might ultimately come down to... Who has the most money from those seeking to sway the courtโs ideological tilt.โย
Bradleyโs framing of this as a conflict overย โrole of lawโ is just a tried and true method that โgives conservative judges a fig leaf to cover their activismโ, notes legal historian Melvin Urofsky. I didnโt interview Urofsky; that quote is from the article.
Whatโs going on here? Does whoever designed the cover disagree with the person who wrote the article? If so, this is a strange, although possibly effective, way of getting revenge.
The real takeaway is as follows.
โThe Isthmus: You can do politics without even thinking about it!โ