Here Comes...And There Goes...The Judge

The Wisconsin Republican response to Tuesday's state supreme court election of Janet Protasiewicz is not to soul-search as to why their extremist candidate lost by ten points, it's to use the gerrymandered GOP super-majority that the state supreme court is expected to rule on this year to impeach and remove Protasiewicz before that can happen.

 

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday, giving liberals control of the court for the first time in 15 years — but some Republican lawmakers are already eyeing a potential impeachment after winning a supermajority in the state Senate.

Wisconsin Republicans won in a separate race this week — the state Senate's 8th District — giving them a supermajority in the chamber. That means that the GOP will have the ability to pursue removal proceedings of certain elected officials if the Assembly votes to impeach them, NBC News reports.

Republican Assemblyman Dan Knodl, who won the 8th district, said in the final days of his campaign that he would consider impeaching Protasiewicz from her position as a judge if he was elected.

In an interview with WISN-TV last week, Knodl said that the GOP's supermajority in the state Senate would give them "more authority in the areas of oversight and accountability of elected officials and appointed officials."

"If there are some that are out there that are corrupt, that are failing at their tasks, then we have the opportunity to hold them accountable … up to impeachment," Knodl said. "Janet Protasiewicz is a Circuit Court judge right now in Milwaukee, and she has failed."

When asked if he would support her impeachment, Knodl replied, "I certainly would consider it." However, it is not clear whether he was only referring to her position on the Milwaukee Circuit Court, or if he would also consider impeaching her if she won the Supreme Court race.

Democrats are now concerned that Knodl's remarks are a precursor to Republicans trying to impeach statewide elected officials, like Protasiewicz, with their new Senate supermajority.

"There's going to be a supermajority in the state Senate that will allow the legislators in control of the state Senate to do what they were threatening back in November, which is to start impeachment proceedings," said Jodi Habush Sinykin, who lost to Knodl, in an interview with WISN-TV before the election.

Knodl is one of the 15 Wisconsin state lawmakers who tried to get former Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the 2020 election results. He narrowly won the election on Tuesday after the seat was left vacant by Republican incumbent Alberta Darling, who retired in November.

His win gave Republicans a two-thirds majority in the Senate, giving them the ability to override vetoes from the governor, and convict and remove officials in impeachment trials.

The Wisconsin Constitution outlines that the state Assembly can impeach with a simple majority "all civil officers of this state for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors," and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has previously ruled that those officers include the governor, lieutenant governor and judges.

"A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Republican Party referred NBC News to recent comments from another GOP state senator who indicated that the Senate would not advance any prospective impeachment proceedings against Protasiewicz," the outlet reported.

Given the importance of the race, I nearly guarantee you that Republicans are going to try this, if only to stop the new 4-3 majority from ruling against the worst gerrymander in the country. They have to get rid of her, or she'll expose the WI GOP as the racketeering operation that it is.

Watch what they do here, not what they say.

A Test Run For Tester's Run

Montana Republicans are considering changing the election rules for Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's reelection race in 2024 and only his 2024 election in order to prevent third party voters from giving Tester another sub-50% win, and then changing the rules back in 2025.

 

A Republican-backed bill to create a “jungle primary” that would box-out third party candidates in the next U.S. Senate race in Montana has advanced.

Senate Bill 566 would create a primary system in which the top two candidates who win the most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party. Right now, each party has separate primaries and advances a winner.

Sen. Greg Hertz, a Republican from Polson, said the bill aims to ensure the most popular candidate wins for a high profile office.

“These are six year terms and to me, if we’re going to send someone to Washington, D.C., they should have the majority support of our voters,” Hertz said.

Hertz called his bill a test run as it includes a sunset date in 2025.

The bill would take effect ahead of the 2024 campaign, when U.S. Sen. Jon Tester is up for reelection. Tester is the last remaining statewide elected Democrat and his bid to hold office is expected to be highly competitive.

In 2012, Tester faced both a Republican and Libertarian candidate. Rep. Hertz highlighted that election saying Tester won with less than 50% of the vote.

Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers pointed out that in 2022, U.S. Congressman Ryan Zinke also won with less than 50% of the vote due to a third-party candidate, but the bill won’t address U.S. House races. Flowers said it’s obvious the bill is targeted at Tester.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, this is just brazen partisanship targeting a single race. This isn’t fair, this isn’t what Montanans want, they don’t want one party rule,” Flowers said.

The Montana Libertarian Party said in a statement that they oppose the bill, calling it an unabashed attempt to eliminate Libertarian access to the ballot. Libertarians tend to pull votes from Republican candidates.

 

The one race in the state where third-party voters might actually make a difference in favor of the Democrat is Tester's 2024 run, so Republicans have to interfere to make sure that doesn't happen, and they're not even being subtle about it. They no longer have to, because it's not like Republicans will pay any sort of price for it and most likely they get a Senate win out of the deal.

That's how politics work in red states. I'm not saying Democrats haven't done similar nonsense, but at least they made it consistent, as with California's jungle primary system affecting all House and Senate races, not just to get rid of one Republican.

 

A Supremely Kept Man

Propublica has a well-sourced and devastating story on how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni have taken millions of dollars in undisclosed gifts over the last two decades from billionaire Harlan Crow.

 

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

Thomas did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judges’ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. When she was on the bench, Gertner said, she was so cautious about appearances that she wouldn’t mention her title when making dinner reservations: “It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.”

Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”

“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” said Canter, now at the watchdog group CREW. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.”

ProPublica uncovered the details of Thomas’ travel by drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees and interviews with dozens of people ranging from his superyacht’s staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.

Federal judges sit in a unique position of public trust. They have lifetime tenure, a privilege intended to insulate them from the pressures and potential corruption of politics. A code of conduct for federal judges below the Supreme Court requires them to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.” Members of the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts has written, “consult” that code for guidance. The Supreme Court is left almost entirely to police itself.

There are few restrictions on what gifts justices can accept. That’s in contrast to the other branches of government. Members of Congress are generally prohibited from taking gifts worth $50 or more and would need pre-approval from an ethics committee to take many of the trips Thomas has accepted from Crow.

Thomas’ approach to ethics has already attracted public attention. Last year, Thomas didn’t recuse himself from cases that touched on the involvement of his wife, Ginni, in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. While his decision generated outcry, it could not be appealed.

Crow met Thomas after he became a justice. The pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men. Over the years, some details of Crow’s relationship with the Thomases have emerged. In 2011, The New York Times reported on Crow’s generosity toward the justice. That same year, Politico revealed that Crow had given half a million dollars to a Tea Party group founded by Ginni Thomas, which also paid her a $120,000 salary. But the full scale of Crow’s benefactions has never been revealed.

Long an influential figure in pro-business conservative politics, Crow has spent millions on ideological efforts to shape the law and the judiciary. Crow and his firm have not had a case before the Supreme Court since Thomas joined it, though the court periodically hears major cases that directly impact the real estate industry. The details of his discussions with Thomas over the years remain unknown, and it is unclear if Crow has had any influence on the justice’s views. 

 

To be fair, Justice Thomas is a right-wing conservative asshole anyway, but undisclosed luxury trips for decades is an ethical breach that should even make him blush. There's no way Thomas would resign now, at the very least he retires when the next Republican president is in the White House.

 

As for Crow, well, we know he's behind the SCOTUS shift to the far-right, and now we know how he's been doing it. 

But Thomas should be made to resign, because, you know, this is wildly unethical and the man's been corrupt for years, and somehow two decades of this became what, the worst-kept secret in SCOTUS? His fellow justices knew, of course. At the very least, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito knew.

The best we can hope for is that Thomas retires, and that would mean a Republican president would replace him, and if we have another Republican president, we're all done for as a democracy anyway, so.

Don't expect anything to happen.  Don't expect anything to ever happen. Not to these bastards.