February 21, 2008

Rigging the Game Again

By Deb Jordahl

You don’t have to be a lawyer to know when you’re being swindled by one.  That’s one benefit of having studied team Doyle’s take no prisoners approach to the acquisition and maintenance of power.

Some of us were knocked back a few feet in the fall of 2006 when we learned that Doyle’s Attorney Mike Maistelman had plotted with State Election Board members to set up Mark Green.  When Maistelman stepped in, the State Elections Board was about to vote on a bogus complaint that questioned the transfer of more than $467,000 from Green’s congressional campaign fund to his gubernatorial campaign fund.  The transfer of money was approved by the board just 18 months earlier and the SEB approved a similar transfer for Democrat Tom Barrett in 2001.  Maistelman told Democrat SEB members not to tax their minds with legal issues and board precedent because this was a purely political decision.

"Even if this ends up in Court it is a PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money," Maistelman said in a 9:31 a.m. e-mail one day before the vote. He sent the message to Carl Holborn and Kerry Dwyer, board members appointed by Democratic leaders of the Legislature.

The fact that Doyle’s foot soldiers weren’t very adept at covering their tracks allowed the media and the public to catch a glimpse of  the brazenness with which he has conducted  business.  The absence of any consequence for this behavior guaranteed that Doyle would repeat it again and again.

Protecting his Investment

Louis Butler, Doyle’s only appointee to the Wisconsin Supreme Court will face voters statewide on April 1^st.  Butler has been a key Doyle ally on the court, taking a number of positions on issues like gaming, medical malpractice reform and law enforcement that are by any standards outside of  mainstream Wisconsin values.  Couple that with Butler’s decade long history of passionately defending some of the worst criminals in Milwaukee history, and his dismal showing the last time he ran statewide, and you begin to understand why team Doyle might find it necessary to call in the cavalry again.  

Enter the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee, Doyle’s very own campaign watch dog --- trained by Wisconsin State Bar President Tom Basting to roll over and jump through hoops in the interest of retaining Justice Butler. 

In a recent interview with WisPolitics.com, the State Bar’s top dog unwittingly divulged the true purpose of the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee, though less attentive students are apt to miss the revelation entirely. 

Ross: Now, with the candidate … with the candidates themselves, I mean, is it, some might argue that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission is the proper form for any kind of a grievance or a complaint because, you know, they’re a state body, they’re there, they can penalize people. But is that not sufficient in your mind?

Basting: Uh, that’s not, uh, what we intend to do. We are not going to encroach on what the Wisconsin Judicial Commission does. In fact, I met with the uh, the executive director and the chair of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission and explained to them exactly what we were doing and that we were not going to make findings uh, of any kind as to whether a candidate had violated any of the rules. The rules pretty clearly state that our, what candidates should and shouldn’t do during a campaign, and they’re aspirational and we’re using those as a basis for our review. Um, but um, we’re not going to encroach on what the Judicial Commission does. The problem with if somebody makes a complaint to the Judicial Commission, when that complaint is made it’s, uh, confidential. And this election period is so short that usually those complaints, uh, it’s difficult for the Commission to act on them and do anything until long after the election is over, which is something that you’ve seen in the past. (Laughs)

In other words, the WJCIC is not designed to monitor campaign communications and raise the tenor of the Supreme Court race.  It’s really meant to serve as a drive through window for left wing groups to file complaints that define Louis Butler’s opponent in a negative light before he has an opportunity to define himself. 

Yes, we’ve seen it before, not once but twice.  Good government organizations who’s only agenda is the pursuit of truth and justice alleging illegal or unethical behavior by a candidate right before the election. 

It worked like a charm in 2006 when Doyle partisans dominated the State Elections Board.  Immediately following the SEB ruling against Green, the Greater Wisconsin Committee, funded by a massive infusion of cash from the Democratic Governors Association, was on the air calling Mark Green corrupt. 

But the plan didn’t work quite as well last year when Linda Clifford and her liberal allies made last minute charges against Judge Annette Ziegler ---in part because as Basting points out --- the wheels of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission grind much too slowly for the six week campaign cycle. It's too bad there wasn’t an official sounding group with the word “judicial” in its title to issue an opinion ---- meaningless though it might be ----that would have been covered extensively in the press.  Then the Greater Wisconsin Committee  could have run commercials saying Annette Ziegler is guilty, guilty, guilty --- instead of settling for “Annette Ziegler may have violated the judicial code of ethics.”

This week the Greater Wisconsin Committee launched their first attack on Judge Michael Gablman accusing him of buying an appointment to the circuit court for $1,200.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for Tom Basting and the WJCIC to chew them out for attempting to “malign the integrity of the process of the judiciary.” 

Judge Gableman will have to start his own committee for that.