By James Wigderson for Media Trackers
Judge Rebecca Dallet, a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, told an audience at a fundraiser for her in San Francisco, CA, that her campaign is an effort to bring their values back to Wisconsin.
“It’s San Francisco. Like this is awesome, the people,” Dallet said. “I know that your values are our Wisconsin values that we’ve lost along the way, and I appreciate that you’re all here.”
Dallet, a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge, heeded Horace Greeley’s advice and went west with her campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday. It is unknown how much California special interest money her campaign received on the trip.
Later, in a story about marrying her husband, Dallet clarified what she meant by San Francisco values.
“So we made a choice to move to Wisconsin because it had the progressive values, a lot of things you have here in your city still which we kind of lost,” Dallet said.
Dallet’s remarks were released by the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) on Tuesday and posted on YouTube. They were first aired on the Mark Belling Show on WISN-AM on Tuesday.
The trip to California was organized by Oakland-based Democratic political consultants 50+1 Strategies, according to Dallet who thanked them. In January, Dallet paid the consultants $7000 for their services. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who recently endorsed Dallet’s candidacy, is among the prominent Democratic clients of 50+1.
The California fundraising trip was sharply criticized by her opponent, Sauk County Judge Michael Screnock.
“While Judge Screnock has focused his campaign on his judicial philosophy, his experience, and the proper role of the court, Judge Dallet has unfortunately tried everything in her power to nationalize her campaign and make this election about extreme liberal interests,” Screnock’s campaign said in a statement Tuesday. “If Judge Dallet is going to embrace national partisan politics and spend her time raising money in San Francisco with Democrat California legislators instead of campaigning in Wisconsin, Badger State voters deserve to know what promises she made to the wealthy out-of-state donors she is now relying on to bankroll her campaign.”
Ironically, in her remarks, Dallet complained to the California donors about out-of-state special interest money.
“We have had special interest money pouring into our state buying justice, or a Justice,” Dallet said. “And in the case of the man I announced I was running against, Justice Gableman, $2.25 million were spent on his race by one group alone.”
Dallet, however, has not condemned former Attorney Gen. Eric Holder or his organization for spending $140,000 on her behalf in an effort to change the Supreme Court to support his organization’s goals of changing redistricting in the states.
Dallet further criticized Gableman for refusing to recuse himself from the John Doe case which the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional. However, Dallet in recent days has also been fighting charges of not recusing herself and actually fundraising from cases that are on her court calendar.
Despite distancing herself earlier from fellow liberal Tim Burns in the primary on giving advance opinions on cases that could come before the state Supreme Court, Dallet tells the audience she is opposed to the way Wisconsin’s legislative districts are drawn and that she supports the current court fight to overturn the legislature’s map-drawing authority.
“Unfortunately, we’re known as the gerrymandering state,” Dallet said. “We brought that wonderful case up to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, where it’s sitting waiting for a decision. But our Republican legislature gerrymandered to such an extent that our federal court found it unconstitutional and now the United States Supreme Court has a chance to hopefully say it’s really important to protect everyone’s right to vote.”
The case, Gill v. Whitford, does not have anything to do with the right to vote but whether legislative districts can be drawn that are not competitive.
Dallet also bragged to the San Francisco audience about the liberal Democratic support she’s recently received. “I got a great shout out from Rachel Maddow last week which is really cool,” Dallet said.
“But my race is the next big race in our country, and it is because of the impact,” Dallet said. “The impact across, not just Wisconsin, but across the nation.”
Dallet also listed Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin among her liberal supporters. Baldwin recently announced that her campaign offices around the state will be used to try to get Dallet elected.
The Republican Party criticized Dallet for trying to appeal to the liberal donors.
“Dallet got comfortable with far-left donors in California and showed just how liberal she really is,” said Alec Zimmerman, the RPW Communications Director. “After starting her campaign touting the need for an independent and fair judiciary, she’s proving that she’ll be anything but.”
In addition to fundraising in California, Dallet said she is appealing to Democrats around the country for help. She is even posting online lists of Wisconsin voters for anyone around the country to call. “So we have phone banking going on from anywhere in the nation,” Dallet said.
