And so maybe that’s why he’s not running again. Wisconsin, which elects its Supreme Court justices, will have an open seat in 2018, as Justice Gableman has declined to seek a second term. A “reliable conservative,” the Journal Sentinel has an unsettling report on Gableman’s climb to power:
As a Burnett County circuit judge, Gableman in 2008 unseated Justice Louis Butler, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting justice in more than four decades.
Almost immediately, he faced charges from the state’s Judicial Commission, which concluded he had lied in a campaign ad that described a case Butler handled as a public defender. The state Supreme Court split 3-3 in 2010 on whether Gableman had violated ethical rules for judges with the ad.
The matter spurred more controversy when the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich revealed it had not required Gableman to pay for the firm’s legal defense of him in the ethics case.
Gableman went on to hear cases involving the firm without disclosing his financial arrangement with it. He ruled in favor of the firm’s clients at least five times, according to a review of cases the Journal Sentinel performed in 2011.
Quid pro quo? It sure feels like it. And it’s incumbent on the judiciary to be the disinterested third party, not tangled up in politics or commercial interests – or even have the appearance of same. I’d say Gableman failed that requirement; and perhaps, looking at the mood of the electorate, he’s decided not to waste the time and energy of a failing campaign, especially as the Democrats already have two energetic candidates signed up for the battle, ready to use his own actions against him.
All speculation on my part.
