Yes, we have to take the coronavirus seriously. Yes, we also have to take the state Supreme Court race seriously.
Get a mask. Get some Purell. Go and vote for Jill Karofsky.
The total numbers in the primary: state Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly, stooge of the Republicans, 352,876. Everybody else, 352,262.
614 votes. Split pretty much right down the middle. A surge one way or another carries it.
Not exactly a stirring consensus for Daniel Kelly, huh? Especially after four years since the most recent former governor of Wisconsin, Mr. F. Gow, appointed this obviously political hack to the highest court in the state.
His appointment would seem to make crude sense, given his background. He's a graduate of the Regent School of Law, a Christian, private university, founded by that great legal philosopher, Pat Robertson. Kelly was the head of the law review that he helped found himself, which makes it easier to be the leader of anything.
He defended the 2010 gerrymandering, representing the Republicans. His judicial philosophy makes it sound like he has a unique talent--just read the words of the law and apply them as read: No interpretation, just read it and be very simple about it. Actually, that sounds like anybody off the street with a reading skill above 8th grade could be on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
His Wikipedia site also says that he believes that slavery and affirmative action are, under the law, morally the same, since "neither can exist without the foundational principle that it is acceptable to force someone into an unwanted economic relationship." Which, technically, is true. if you want to equalize slavery and affirmative action. But that makes slavery a largely "economic relationship," which is very definitely isn't. You can dislike the way affirmative action is applied so as to completely discount its relevance, but to make it equivalent to slavery is, well, more than a bit of a stretch.
It means, too, that if you didn't like slavery, you won't like affirmative action, either. That's kind of like saying that the effects of ice fishing and surfing are pretty much the same, seeing as how both have to do with movement over water. Well, yes, in one sense and a very big no in the way that actually makes sense.
Where in the world did he get that poppycock? Who knows? But someone like this doesn't belong on the state Supreme Court. Period.
Jill Karofsky does. She was educated at the private, but still normal, Duke University, and got her law degree at UW-Madison. She's a former trial court judge, which she says makes her better suited to serve on the state Supreme Court since she saw what effect its rulings had on normal people (and I would agree). She was an Assistant Attorney General. She is an adjunct professor at the UW-Madison law school. Daniel Kelly was never any of these.
He was a political appointee of our last, awful governor. The present conservative leadership of the state Supreme Court is trying to protect Kelly by claiming that he is somehow immune to attacks of political influence--this after two of its current, conservative members refused to recuse themselves in a case in which associations which contributed to their electoral victories were involved (and won).
Sorry, won't wash. Let's wash this a little bit cleaner on April 7. Early voting begins Monday. Lisa Neubauer just missed last time, when a sudden surge of 45ian money suddenly arrived in the form of non-sensical but effective ads that allowed her opponent, Brian Hagedorn, to overcome a nearly insurmountable deficit; let's put Jill Karofsky in there instead.
Again, I refer you to the above numbers; it's likely to be close. Don't stay home. Keep yourselves germless but get out there and vote. It won't turn the court around all at once, but it'll be an important step. At the very least, we'll have a stooge of the last governor out of there.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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