Judges Want To End Elections For Judges. They Are Heir To The Throne Anyway.

Appeals court judges lament negative campaigning
By JOHN DIEDRICH
jdiedrich@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 16, 2008
Wisconsin's two federal appeals court judges on Wednesday bemoaned the negative tone of the recent state Supreme Court election and called for debate on whether judges should be elected.

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Terence Evans called the campaign in which Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman unseated incumbent Justice Louis Butler "a travesty." The race featured record spending - at least $4 million - by special interest groups and an avalanche of negative ads.

Evans said Wisconsin's system of electing Supreme Court justices should change, but he stopped short of saying how.

"I just think it is a terrible system," said Evans, who spoke with fellow 7th Circuit Judge Diane Sykes at the Marquette University's Law School. "I think (a change) is long past due."

Sykes, who previously sat on the state Supreme Court and beat Butler in a 2000 election, called the recent campaign "very crude." But though judicial elections have problems, so do other methods of filling the bench, she said.

Some favor having the governor appoint someone for state Senate confirmation, and others suggest a judicial commission make the pick. Some want public financing of judicial campaigns.

Without an election, the process could be hijacked by groups to advance certain candidates, said Sykes, whose seat on the high court was filled by Butler after she was tapped for the federal bench about four years ago.

"It is just a matter of moving the politics around," she said.

"No system of choosing judges will remove politics," Sykes said. "It is a political choice. It is just who will make it."

From the April 17, 2008 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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