#wipolitics

HEADER READS "BRADLEY V. KLOPPENBURG IS A CLASSIC CONTEST BETWEEN TWO VISIONS OF THE ROLE OF LAW”

STORY EXPLAINS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE

The Isthmus’ cover story this week is a hit job on conservative judge Rebecca Bradley, who is the incumbent running for State Supreme Court. And that’s totally fine - Bradley is just another puppet for business interests. She’s hoping to be elected on the strength of her appeal to Christian fundamentalists and the white population’s 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 “liberal” will always mean “Not Republican” - but we can talk about that later, Isthmus. For now, can we just talk about the cover? 

This is not “a classic contest between two visions of the role of law”. Did you find some sort of niche automatic headline generator online? A clash between “two visions of the role of law” is exactly the way Bradley is trying to frame the race. Her whole thing is to claim she’s above politics and has a different judicial philosophy than Kloppenberg, so that people won’t think about her actual politics when they vote. The whole point of the article is to debunk that framework. Quote: “The race...might ultimately come down to... Who has the most money from those seeking to sway the court’s ideological tilt.” 

Bradley’s framing of this as a conflict over “role of law” is just a tried and true method that “gives conservative judges a fig leaf to cover their activism”, notes legal historian Melvin Urofsky. I didn’t interview Urofsky; that quote is from the article.

What’s 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.

Democrats Are Looking Good In Wisconsin As Russ Feingold Leads Senate Race By 14

A Marquette Law School Poll conducted between September 24th and 28th, found Democratic challenger Russ Feingold had opened up a 50 to 36 lead over incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson. Feingold’s numbers marked a 9-point jump from his 47 to 42 lead over Johnson in Marquette Law School’s August poll of the Wisconsin Senate race.

#WIunion #Wisconsin  #WIpolitics

Amy Goodman ‘We Will Only Get Louder’: Dozens of Communities Vote to Boot Big Money from Politics

The former president said that for 100 years, people in America had looked to Wisconsin as a place where people had vigorous debates on the issues, but worked out solutions.

"Now they look at Wisconsin and they see America's battleground," Clinton said. "Between people who want to work together to solve problems and people who want to divide and conquer. People who know that creative cooperation is working in America and people who want constant conflict."

Speaking under a gazebo on the banks of the Milwaukee River, Clinton said "creative cooperation" was the best way to reach consensus on issues such as economic development and balancing budgets.

"Everywhere I go in America, everywhere I go in the world, the only thing that is working is when you get everybody who has a stake in the game in there, treat them with respect, and people go forward," Clinton said.

"This divide and conquer, no compromise crowd, if they had been in control, there never would have been a U.S. Constitution," Clinton said.

Clinton said that, ordinarily, he was opposed to recall elections.

Signing a Recall Petition Does Not Require Judicial Recusal : Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog