Justices support elections over appointments

Talk about it

Three State Supreme Court justices say it would be wrong to stop electing judges in the name of reform.

Pat Roggensack, Ann Walsh Bradley and Patrick Crooks spoke in favor of judicial elections this week at a board meeting of the watchdog group Common Cause.

The last two Supreme Court contests have seen record amounts of campaign spending, most of it by special interests.

After a little-known conservative beat incumbent Louis Butler in April, one Assembly Democrat called for an end to Supreme Court elections and to have justices appointed at the Capitol.

But Roggensack said it would only create a whole new set of politics, in which candidates would need to be well-connected.

She said a governor of one party would never appoint someone who’s been an official with the other party.

Crooks said the state should do the right thing in financing Supreme Court elections and disclosing where campaign money comes from. But he said cutting out the voters goes “totally against our traditions.”

Bradley says no state which elects judges has changed to an appointment process in the last 20 years.

Tags: wisconsin news, judges, electing