Appeals panel: Supreme Court should take up collective bargaining law

Hopefully, with four conservatives currently on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (and, God willing, Prosser is re-elected), they’ll take the case and rule for Walker and the taxpayers.

A state appeals panel said Thursday a case over a new collective bargaining law should go directly to the state Supreme Court.

The move puts the issue squarely before the Supreme Court less than two weeks before Justice David Prosser faces re-election.

It is at the high court’s discretion on whether it takes the case. It is not clear how quickly the court will decide whether to take it and, if it does, how soon it would issue a ruling.

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Explosive Connection between JoAnne Kloppenburg and Unions Exposed

Charlie Sykes exposes a letter leaders from the American Federation of Teachers Local 212 sent to its members regarding the supreme court election:

This is as clear an assault on an independent judiciary as you can imagine. Either candidate Joanne Kloppenburg has implicitly or explicitly signaled the unions that she will rule in their favor on future litigation that would come before the state Supreme Court.

The unions are casting the Supreme Court election not as a choice of justices, but rather as a way to “get even,” with Scott Walker. No, it’s not subtle.

From a letter to members from the American Federation of Teachers, Local 212, the union at the Milwaukee Area Technical College:

“..on April 5 we will continue the process of defending our college and taking back our state from walker and the anti-union ideologues who presently control it..

Local 212 COPE has endorsed Joanne Kloppenburg for Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Kloppenburg Would Have to Recuse Herself on any Budget Repair Bill Cases

JoAnne Kloppenburg’s husband, Jack, a UW-Madison professor, has publicly opposed Gov. Walker’s attempts to restrict collective bargaining for public workers and donated money during the past years to two of the formerly AWOL Democratic state senators – including Sen. Mark Miller, the Minority Leader who gave the opposition speech to Gov. Walker’s budget address.

According to Wispolitics.com, Kloppenburg said during a debate with incumbent David Prosser this week that “she also wouldn’t need to recuse herself from any cases on the collective bargaining bill because she has remained independent during the protests in Madison.”

But her husband hasn’t remained neutral.

Along with other professors from UW, Jack Kloppenburg signed an open letter this February that said in part, “We are concerned, therefore, about the governor’s proposal to deprive public employees of the right to bargain collectively in Wisconsin.” The letter ran in a campus newspaper and was disseminated as a press release by a group called Defend Wisconsin (its website contains the subhead “against Scott Walker’s attacks”). The press release bears the headline, “260 UW Madison Faculty Support Collective Bargaining Rights For all Workers.”

JoAnne Kloppenburg Accepted Donation From Judge Sumi’s Husband

On April 5, Wisconsinites will go to the poll to pick a new supreme court justice. The election has gained prominence because many political analysts believe the Budget Repair Bill may one day end up before the high court. Throughout the campaign, challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg has claimed she is politically unbiased and impartial. However analysis of her political history, donations and comments have called that into question. Now Media Trackers has learned that Kloppenburg accepted a campaign donation from the husband of Judge Maryann Sumi, the judge who caused a firestorm of controversy by blocking Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill.

Additionally, Sumi’s husband, Carl Sinderbrand, an environmental lawyer, also represents a party in a pending case in which Kloppenburg is defending the other side – the state DNR.

…

According to Wispolitics.com, Kloppenburg said during a debate with incumbent David Prosser this week that “she also wouldn’t need to recuse herself from any cases on the collective bargaining bill because she has remained independent during the protests in Madison.”

However, the donation from Sumi’s husband raises serious questions as to whether Kloppenburg, if victorious, could even hear the state Attorney General’s challenge to Sumi’s ruling, which could eventually reach the state Supreme Court.