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"The vote was about protecting state's voters"

"The vote was about protecting state's voters": In Sunday's edition of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Patience Drake Roggensack, a Justice serving on the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, will have a very interesting op-ed that begins, "Recently, the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted a rule that states that a justice is not disqualified from a proceeding solely because his or her campaign received a lawful contribution, or because a group over which the justice has no control ran a campaign advertisement. Some articles in the media have implied that past campaign contributions or independent advertisements caused the justices to vote in favor of that rule. Those articles have not presented the full story of the concerns that the court's rule addressed. Accordingly, they are misleading and deserve a response."

In her op-ed, Justice Roggensack explains that "I voted for the rule because of my concern that the citizens who elected justices were in danger of having their votes for judicial candidates cancelled, solely due to another person's lawful contribution or due to an independent advertisement over which the justice had no control. Let me explain -- if a person made a lawful campaign contribution and that caused the justice to be disqualified from deciding legal issues presented to the court, all of the other voters who chose that justice because they believed he or she was fair, independent and knowledgeable about the law would have their votes cancelled because of the justice's disqualification."

Full post as published by How Appealing on December 05, 2009 (boomark / email).