As expected, the Capital Times, Madison’s other leftwing newspaper, has endorsed Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Dallet in the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court against Sauk County Judge Michael Screnock. If there was any doubt from which part of the ideological spectrum Dallet sprang, the Capital Times makes it clear by saying she would be a Supreme Court Justice like Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
“She is steeped in the grass-roots values and legal traditions of the state she seeks to serve, while at the same time she is fully aware of the challenges that have arisen and that will continue to arise in a more diverse and rapidly evolving Wisconsin,” the editorial said.
Somehow a commitment to uphold the rule of law or adhere to the Constitution never figured into the Capital Times’ calculations, but then those commitments are not in Dallet’s plans, either.
But our friends at the Capital Times takes an amusing side trip to justify Dallet’s candidacy:
The fact that Dallet is a woman seems to trouble some of the supporters of her underqualified and ethically compromised challenger, Judge Michael Screnock. A right-wing website that has been cheerleading for Screnock’s candidacy recently complained: “Dallet wants to be on the Supreme Court because she’s a woman.”
Let’s see. What right-wing website would that be? Oh, yeah, it was us, although the Capital Times’ readers will not know that since we’re not mentioned by name nor is there a link in the online editorial. It’s almost as if the Capital Times editorial writers were trying to hide the context of the statement.
Because if they allowed the readers to venture over to RightWisconsin, they would learn that it was Dallet who made an issue of her gender, and we merely pointed out the flaw in Dallet’s reasoning:
So if the (inarticulate) justification for Dallet’s campaign is that there are not enough women judges, what percentage of Supreme Court Justices should be women that Dallet would deem “fair”? If 50.1 percent of the state’s population is women, would Dallet accept slightly over 50 percent? That would be four out of seven.
Somebody should tell Dallet, using the justification she gave for her campaign, that there is simply no room for her on the state Supreme Court. There are five women on the high court, already one beyond the Dallet-defined quota. We could easily make room for the younger (by comparison) Dallet by tossing the two most senior members from the high court, Justices Shirley Abrahamson and Ann Walsh Bradley, but it’s likely Dallet would not get through the primary if she made such a suggestion.
Given the affection the Capital Times has for Abrahamson and Bradley, perhaps they should reconsider their endorsement and endorse Screnock instead.
