In the latest development in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election fight — which has quickly gone from a sleepy, nominally non-partisan race to a proxy political battle over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union bill — incumbent Justice David Prosser has now lost the endorsement of former Democratic Gov. Patrick Lucey, who had been serving as an honorary campaign co-chair but has now switched to the challenger, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.
And in a further sign of this election becoming a partisan, nationally-watched race, Sarah Palin has posted a tweet endorsing Prosser. The election will be held this Tuesday, April 5.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports:
Lucey said in a statement that he has followed Prosser’s campaign “with increasing dismay and now alarm,” adding that “Prosser has lost that most crucial of characteristics for a Supreme Court Justice — as for any judge — even-handed impartiality.”
Lucey also cited Prosser’s “disturbing distemper and lack of civility that does not bode well for the High Court in the face of demands that are sure to be placed on it in these times of great political and legal volatility.”
The reference to civility could possibly be a reference to the recent reports that Prosser, in a heated argument last year, called Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson — whom Lucey had originally appointed to a vacancy on the court back in 1976 — a “total bitch.” Prosser has told reporters that he “probably overreacted,” but also that it was “entirely warranted” against the behavior of the court’s more liberal members.
As TPM has noted, a state Supreme Court election would not normally be major news. But in the wake of Walker’s legislation, and the political protests that gripped the state and attracted national attention, the court race has quickly turned into a proxy political battle. Conservatives are supporting Prosser, a former Republican state Assembly Speaker, and liberals backing Kloppenburg.
Lucey served as governor from 1971-1977, then served as President Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to Mexico from 1977-1979. In the 1980 presidential election, he bolted from the Democratic Party to become the running mate of independent presidential candidate John Anderson, with the ticket receiving 6.6% of the popular vote and no electoral votes.
