If you believe the onslaught of ads for the state Supreme Court race, one candidate has spent his career working to set criminals free while the other only got where he is because of political favors.
Both Justice Louis Butler and Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman have denounced the ads that have largely come from unregulated, independent third-party groups. And close observers of the race are urging voters to ignore the ads when considering whom to support.
The election is April 1. The winner will serve 10 years.
For some, the campaigns can 't end soon enough.
"This has turned out to be far and away the most despicable campaign for any state office in Wisconsin that I can remember, " said Jay Heck, director of Common Cause Wisconsin.
But the race is seen as crucial to the future of the court and could tilt the ideological balance from a 4-3 liberal-leaning majority to a 4-3 conservative-leaning majority.
Butler is looking to hold on to the seat he took in 2004 after being appointed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Gableman is trying to be the first to knock off an incumbent justice since 1967.
The race is officially nonpartisan. But Republicans and business interests lined up behind Gableman, while Butler had the support of liberal interest groups and labor unions.
Court makeup important
While there is clearly an ideological split on the court in some cases, the idea that justices break predictably along political lines is overstated, said Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor who served on the court from 1993 to 1998.
"Frankly, I 'm glad it 's overplayed, " she said. "We don 't want justices who are leaning one way or the other. "
The court 's makeup will help decide how it rules on major cases in the coming years, however.
Such cases could include a challenge to the state 's new cap of $750,000 on medical malpractice damages, a lawsuit seeking benefits for the gay and lesbian partners of public employees and a case seeking to bar the transfer of $200 million from a state malpractice fund for other purposes.
Butler, viewed as generally siding with more liberal members of the court, argues his background and experience makes him the clear choice.
"I 'm not coming to the job to learn it, " Butler said. "I 'm coming to the job with a vast amount of experience in doing the job. I think that 's a really stark distinction between the two of us. That I 've got this experience, I 've done this work and I 've done it for years. And I don 't think he has. "
Gableman, a self-professed "judicial conservative, " counters that his experience working with crime victims as a prosecutor makes him the better choice.
Gableman 's background
Gableman, 41, was largely unknown when he entered the race in October. He 's been a circuit court judge in Burnett County since 2002, when he was appointed by former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum. Before that he was appointed Ashland County district attorney by then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, also a Republican, in 1999.
Gableman also worked as a prosecutor in Marathon and Langlade counties.
Gableman 's appointment to the bench has been called into question by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal group run by Democratic Party operative Bill Christopherson. It implied in an ad that Gableman won his appointment only after donating $1,250 to McCallum 's campaign.
McCallum said he appointed Gableman because of his qualifications. The ad was also rebuked by a nonpartisan candidate monitoring committee.
Butler 's background
Butler, 56, is the state 's first black Supreme Court justice and the only one from Milwaukee. His appointment four years ago came after he lost a run for the high court in 2000.
Butler served as a municipal judge in Milwaukee for 10 years and as a circuit court judge for four years before joining the Supreme Court. Before that he worked 14 years in the state public defender 's office.
The election is the second one in a row for the Supreme Court where big money from outside groups largely drowned out the candidates themselves. Last year, in the race won by Annette Ziegler, nearly $6 million was spent, with about half of it coming from the third party groups.
Just how much will be spent on this year 's race won 't be clear until after the election, said Mike McCabe, director of the government watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
McCabe, Heck and Geske all urged voters to ignore the TV ads and seek out information on their own about the candidates.
"They need to set aside all the heated rhetoric, all the negative commercials and focus on which of the candidates they think would be most impartial, " Heck said.
Butler has expressed the most frustration with how his race has gone, repeatedly calling on the third-party groups to "stand down " and let the candidates run the race. Gableman has also asked for those groups not to participate, but he didn 't put up his first television ad until weeks after others attacking Butler had run.
Gableman has sought to portray Butler as a "judicial activist, " one who 's more intent on interpreting the law than simply applying its plain meaning. Butler rejects the label.
"The problem with throwing out terms and pejoratives like the word activist ' is no one knows what it means, " Butler said. "Typically what it means is you disagreed with an opinion, or you disagreed with a decision. "
Butler has been involved in some of the court 's most talked-about decisions in recent years. They include decisions to strike down the state 's cap on medical malpractice damages, to allow childhood victims of lead paint poisoning to sue companies and to order police to change some tactics in an attempt to protect innocent people.
Controversial ad
Gableman and outside groups backing him have attempted to make crime the focus of the race -- even though only about one third of the cases heard by the court are criminal -- and ads say Butler has been soft on crime.
Gableman 's first TV ad even reached back to a case that Butler was assigned as a public defender, inferring that Butler 's work on the case resulted in a child rapist being set free. In fact, the man served his entire sentence despite Butler 's defense.
Butler says he 's being unfairly attacked, and an independent judicial monitoring committee has agreed. It called the Gableman ad "highly offensive, " "disgraceful " and unbecoming of a sitting judge.
Gableman defends the ad as factual and said it merely discusses Butler 's record.
"My opponent worked for many years in a former career to help criminals escape the consequences of their actions, " Gableman said of Butler 's work as a defense lawyer.
Voting record dispute
Citing a study done by the anti-Butler group the Coalition for America 's Families, Gableman 's campaign has said Butler sided with criminals 60 percent of the time while on the high court.
Butler claimed his own analysis showed that he actually voted to deny appeals about 75 percent of the time.Butler said he voted to uphold convictions about 97 percent of the time.
Both sides provided The Associated Press a list of the cases they used in making their conclusions. But to get to the divergent outcomes, each side picked different cases that they characterized as criminal, and even interpreted the court 's rulings differently.
Gableman has since backed off of his endorsement of the figure, saying "I don 't know if the number is 30 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent. "
Butler has also blunted Gableman's claim of being the candidate of choice for law enforcement by pointing out his endorsements by five major law enforcement organizations representing more than 18,500 people including the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and the Wisconsin Troopers Association.
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/278314This is great that the media is finally catching on and the crappy ads themselves have become the story. So anyone who is just paying the least bit of attention is seeing what is going on. I don't think a lot of people come out for spring elections anyway- but at least those that do will know the truth.
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