Feels like Stephen King, Jon Stewart writing WI Doe case end-game

The right has successfully tipped the scales when it comes to Wisconsin elections, ballot-box fairness and crucial judicial reviews, too.

There's no way around that conclusion. The state's procedural checks and balances have been replaced by checks, from big balances.

Here's how and why:

Now that the federal courts have said it's a state issue, it's likely that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether an investigation by several prosecutors into possibly illegal coordination between Scott Walker's campaign and big-dollar donor groups can continue.

That investigation could determine whether Gov. Walker can remain in office.

With that in mind, give careful consideration to these paragraphs from the Journal Sentinel story today that explains how some of the same donor groups fighting to terminate the investigation have also given gobs of money to the campaigns of a majority of the Supreme Court that could review the investigation:

Among the groups mentioned in the investigation are three that have spent heavily in court races to elect four of the court's seven justices. The Wisconsin Club for Growth is estimated to have spent $400,000 for Annette Ziegler in 2007; $507,000 for Michael Gableman in 2008; $520,000 for David Prosser in 2011; and $350,000 for Patience Roggensack in 2013.

Citizens for a Strong America spent an estimated $985,000 to help Prosser. That group was funded by the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which prosecutors have described as a "hub" that distributed funds to allies.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which has received some funding from the Wisconsin Club for Growth and is the state's largest business lobbying group, spent an estimated $2.2 million for Ziegler; $1.8 million for Gableman; $1.1 million for Prosser; and $500,000 for Roggensack.

The estimates come from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a group that tracks political spending and lobbies for more campaign finance regulations.

So you say - - 'well, those justices have to step aside, recuse themselves.'

Not so fast.

Under Wisconsin judicial procedure, the Supreme Court justices themselves determine whether they are in a conflict-of-interest situation by adopting rules to guide their recusals.

The current rules putting the judges in charge of their own ethical enforcement were written at the Court's request by big outside, generally pro-GOP groups, including the WMC which heavily donated to a majority of the Court - - Prosser, Ziegler, Roggensack and Gableman - - as the Journal Sentinel story reported today.

Here is how I wrote about and documented this complete State Supreme Court recusal procedure absurdity a few months ago - - and then you tell me if you think the playing field here is anything but tilted.
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As you process the news that the conservative majority on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justices today validated Wrong-Way Walker's rollbacks of voting and collective bargaining rights - - and that several of the same Justices' campaigns were significantly funded by the WMC and other corporate special interests which also heavily back Walker - - do not forget that these same Justices let the WMC and the Realtors write for the Court a new ethics rule defining when - - basically, never - - recusals were in order by Judges and Justices to reduce conflicts-of-interest and enhance the appearance of fairness.

Yes, you read that right:

In response to [a tougher, independent proposal], the Wisconsin Realtors Association (“Realtors”) and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (“WMC”) filed separate petitions.[4] The petitions sought to amend the Judicial Code of Conduct to provide that recusal is not required in a proceeding based solely on any endorsement or receipt of a lawful campaign contribution from a party or entity involved in the proceeding. The petitions also sought clarification that a judge does not need to seek recusal where it would be based solely on a party in the case sponsoring an independent expenditure or issue advocacy communication in favor of the judge.

In a 4-3 decision,[5] the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the League’s petition and adopted the Realtors and WMC’s petitions. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, joined by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice N. Patrick Crooks, criticized the majority’s decision to adopt the rules calling it “a dramatic change to our judicial code of ethics.”[6] In particular, the dissent took issue with the majority’s decision to adopt petitions “proposed by special interest groups.”[7] Dissatisfied with the majority’s decision, the dissent urged the Legislature to “engage in further study of judicial recusal.”[8]

Part of a regrettable, embarrassing pattern. 

And noted nationally, cited here:

The Center for American Progress surveys the states on judicial ethics, gives Wisconsin an "F," and slaps David Prosser's face at the top of the Internet version of the report. 

Read it here:

Wisconsin: F (35 points) 

Wisconsin received a failing grade after its state supreme court adopted a recusal rule that literally instructs judges not to recuse themselves from cases involving campaign contributors.  

In 2010, the four-justice conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to institute a recusal rule written by the Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, a group that subsequently donated nearly $1 million to support conservative Justice David Prosser’s re-election in 2011. The rule says that recusal is not required “based solely on … a lawful campaign contribution.”  

The majority’s comments that accompany the rule say that requiring recusal for campaign cash “would create the impression that receipt of a contribution automatically impairs the judge’s integrity.” In other words, the four justices in the conservative majority are worried that mandatory recusal would lead the public to think that judges are biased.

It's a political mobius strip, a trap. The foxes built the hen house, moved in, expanded it, locked the door - - and get to decide if they've done the right thing.

Look at it this way: 

Suppose the Wisconsin Badgers were in the Rose Bowl playing the Washington Huskies, and the game, which had been tied through 59 minutes, was going to be decided by a last-minute review of a Huskies' touchdown.

The referees huddle to make their decision, and you know already that Huskies' boosters had given most of the refs large payments that helped them hold on to their jobs.

Fair? Ethical? In America?