Brennan Center for Justice

Contact: 

Mike Webb, 212-998-6746
James Sample,
212-992-8648
 

An African American
justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court lost
his bid for re-election Tuesday in a racially charged and interest
group-dominated campaign that raises new questions about the role of money in
judicial campaigns.

Louis Butler, the first black
Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin, is the first incumbent to lose a seat on
the bench in more than 40 years.  Butler's loss may be attributed, in part, to a nasty
television advertising campaign that featured an
ad so racially offensive that editorial boards across the state called for Mike
Gableman (Butler's
successful opponent) to take it off the air.

"It is hard to imagine a
better advertisement for the need for public financing of judicial elections,"
said James Sample, Counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for
Justice.  "The special interest groups who paid for 90% of the ads in this
campaign, essentially paid to mislead voters and to present caricatures rather
than true pictures of the candidates."  With public funding, a judge would have an
opportunity to respond to such attack ads.

Late last year, all seven
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices signed a letter in support
of public financing for judicial campaigns. 
"We write to support the concept of realistic, meaningful public
financing for Supreme Court elections to facilitate and protect the judicial
function.... The risk inherent in any non-publicly funded judicial election for
this Court is that the public may inaccurately perceive a justice as beholden
to individuals or groups that contribute to his or her campaign. Judges must
not only be fair, neutral, impartial and non-partisan but also should be so
perceived by the public."

The Butler-Gableman campaign also highlights the trend in
which African Americans who receive interim appointments to the bench have difficulty
retaining their seats when they stand for election.  "Public financing levels the playing field
and gives judicial candidates a fair opportunity to present themselves to
voters," said Deborah Goldberg, Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan
Center.  "All too often - particularly in
Southern states - initially appointed judges of color serve with distinction and
then are knocked off the court because they cannot successfully compete in
privately financed contested elections."

Recently, some judges who have won election after big-money
campaigns have rendered decisions in cases in which their campaign donors or
closely related interests were parties before the court. It is critical that
the fundamental right to due process not get short shrift in such circumstances.  A new Brennan Center report, Fair
Courts: Setting Recusal Standards addresses this challenge
both nationally, and specifically in Wisconsin.

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