In Wisconsin Supreme Court, Fix Is in for Scott Walker

[midnight]

"So, when the four Republican justices rule for Walker, all the rightwing chorus will sing: We told you so, as though the four justices brought by GOP money were not part of the problem.

There is of course the Due Process Clause case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4 by Justice Kennedy, Caperton v. Massey (2009) (Brennen Center for Justice).

Writes Justice Kennedy: "We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case was pending or imminent. The inquiry centers on the contribution's relative size in comparison to the total amount of money contributed to the campaign, the total amount spent in the election, and the apparent effect such contribution had on the outcome of the election."

Facing the litigant-purchased Wisconsin Court, the John Doe probe cases will take years to reach the High Court, and by that time, the presidential race will be over and Caperton won't present a problem for the then-former-presidential candidate, Scott Walker."

http://malcontends.blogspot.com/


I'm cross posting this here.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016120826

[midnight]

1. Graphs and Republican's discuss tactics going back to the gilded age.

Now the probe is stalled after coming under sustained legal attack from advocacy groups, which have depicted it as a partisan-driven rogue operation. “The John Doe investigation is a transparent attempt to target and silence Wisconsin conservatives,” said Rivkin, the Wisconsin Club for Growth lawyer, who has directed the legal attack on the probe.

One federal judge, concluding that the investigation was a violation of the free-speech rights of the advocacy groups, ordered last year that the probe be shut down and directed prosecutors “to permanently destroy” all the evidence they had obtained. That order was later reversed, and next month the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the investigation should proceed. The outcome could well determine whether Walker will be confronted with questions about the secret donations — and any benefits the contributors might have received — while he runs for president.

“This is the stuff that attack ads are made of,” said Julia Azari, a Marquette University assistant professor of political science who has followed the investigations into Walker. So far, she noted, Walker has effectively “stonewalled” any questions about the probe — saying only that he is not a target. And given the polarized political atmosphere in the state, he has paid little political price for not answering questions, Azari said, adding: “He’s been successful in this narrative: ‘I’ve been persecuted, the unions are after me.’” But Gerald C. Nichol, a retired judge who chairs the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the state agency that enforces state election laws, strongly disputed that there were any political motives behind the investigation. “I have seen nothing in terms of political bias,” Nichol told Yahoo News in an interview. “This is not a witch hunt.”

"When he later learned about the secret donations by Gogebic Taconite and other contributors to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, Schultz said in an interview, “I was heart-broken. I was crushed. All of a sudden, I saw something that had never happened before in Wisconsin. You had to go back to when the railroad barons bought the entire legislature during the Gilded Age.” (The mining firm last month announced it was shelving the project for now because of new concerns about federal environmental restrictions.)"

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-photo-charlie-114429739886.html