Wisconsin Supreme Court Campaign Funding

Today's New York Times complains:

"According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spent about $5.6 million to support the election of Justices Annette Ziegler, Michael Gableman, David Prosser and Patience Roggensack. The Wisconsin Club for Growth spent about $1.8 million to help elect those justices, while Citizens for a Strong America spent almost $1 million to elect Mr. Prosser.

This should not be a hard call, but under a pitifully weak rule in Wisconsin’s code of judicial conduct, judges do not have to recuse themselves over independent spending related to their campaigns."

Idaho Supreme Court Election

Results of one contested and one uncontested race.

Op-ed says:

Liberal think tank, Center for American Progress, recently graded the ethics laws governing judicial elections in each state. Idaho, and most of the other 39 states with elected judges, got an “F” because state code doesn’t consider cases involving a one-time political backer an automatic reason for recusal, an issue that the American Bar Association has repeatedly blasted. Idaho’s judicial election ethics policy scored the lowest on the organization’s list. That’s especially interesting when you consider a record $33.7 million was spent on judicial elections in the United States in 2012, reports the Washington Post.