Litigation

Mixed Reaction to WI Public Financing Law

By Peter Hardin

Gov.  Jim Doyle’s signing of a law to provide public financing for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates won decidedly mixed reaction in segments of the legal community.

A report online from the State Bar of Wisconsin called Doyle’s action “the finishing touches on the most significant judicial election reform in several decades.” The bar group had lobbied for the bill and made it a major public policy goal, according to the report, headlined “State Bar lauds signing of landmark Impartial Justice Bill.”

The Wisconsin Law Journal published an article about the bill-signing and gave attention to a political scientist’s questioning whether the law would achieve its desired impact.

Meanwhile, a commentary in the same publication by David Ziemer slammed the new law. The essay  was entitled, “Impartial justice or partial justices?” Ziemer examined the requirements for candidates wanting to qualify for public financing, found them burdensome, and concluded candidates could qualify  easily after enlisting support from labor unions.

An article in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal stated that Justice David Prosser, who will face re-election in 2011, also questioned the law’s workability. Justice Prosser had opposed the measure. “This is not the panacea that people are talking about,” he said, and he voiced a concern that outside major media markets, voters would get no advertising about a candidate’s campaign.

Candidates who agree to spending limits would get $100,000 in public financing for a primary and $300,000 for a general election campaign,  a “sharp departure from recent elections that have cost millions of dollars apiece,” according to the Journal Sentinel.

Doyle signed the bill Tuesday. It was written to curb the influence of special interest spending in state Supreme Court elections by supporting qualifying candidates with taxpayer funding. You can read more about it from other Gavel Grab posts or a Justice at Stake press release, and you can learn about public financing from Justice at Stake’s Web page on the topic.

Full post as published by The Gavel on December 02, 2009 (boomark / email).