The Greater Wisconsin Committee, the liberal group that has been running attack ads against incumbent state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser headed into this Tuesday’s election, is up with another ad in the home stretch –Â a quick 15-second spot going after Prosser over the revelation that last year he had called Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson “a total bitch.”
“What did David Prosser call one of America’s most respected judges? He called her a total [bleep]-tch,” the announcer says, with the on-screen text showing old video of an angry Prosser, and with text declaring that he’d called Abrahamson “a total b!*tch,” not leaving much to imagination.
“Prosser even threatened to ‘destroy’ her. Tell Prosser, sexist slurs and threats of retribution have no place in our state’s highest court.”
Prosser has told reporters that he “probably overreacted,” at the time, but also that his outburst was “entirely warranted” against the behavior of the court’s more liberal members.
According to the group’s press release, the video of an angry Prosser dates back to the mid-1990s, when Prosser was the Republican Speaker of the State Assembly.
As TPM has noted, a state Supreme Court election would not normally be national news. But in the wake of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation curtailing public employee unions, 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, and liberals backing Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.
