Mother and Daughter, Justly Proud

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Ellen Brostrom are wary of almost all of the labels that people try to put on them and on other justices and judges.

But one label they are proud of is mother and daughter, and that was clear Thursday during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School. The two are believed to be the only mother and daughter to serve on the bench at the same time in Wisconsin history, Gousha said.

“You’ve just been an incredible role model for me,” Judge Brostrom told her mother. Justice Roggensack said she never intentionally put her daughter on the path to being a judge, but she agreed she was very pleased when Bostrom narrowly won election in 2009.

When Gousha asked how the two of them react to labels such as “conservative” or “liberal” when it comes to describing judges, Justice Roggensack said, “I think it’s a lazy definition.” The use of labels reflects the high degree of partisanship of the times, especially when it comes to elections. She said labels are useful in negative campaigning, which is the way campaigns “can hit hardest fastest.”

Most cases that come before the state Supreme Court don’t fit on a liberal-conservative axis, she said.

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What the Cap Times Did Not Tell Us About the Wisconsin Supreme Court

One of my professional interests and charges is to follow the Wisconsin Supreme Court. About now, it’s a fascinating beat. Last month, the Capital Times covered the Court’s December 7 administrative conference. As Daniel Suhr pointed out on this blog, the article leaves a bit to be desired.

The article spends a great deal of time emphasizing the testiness that was on display during a public administrative conference held by the Court on December 7. That’s fine as far as it goes. The conference was certainly contentious and, at times, less than congenial. Part of that is due to the Court’s decision to hold its administrative conferences in public, thereby putting sausage making on display.

But it’s not just that. There have been many other indications of bad feeling on the Court, and that contention is not new. When the Chief Justice ran for reelection in 1999, a majority of the Court (crossing ideological divides) endorsed her opponent. That must have made for a few frosty decision conferences. The Court’s decisions and the concurrences and dissents of the individual justices have exhibited a certain heat for quite some time.

I do wish that the justices could find a way to dial down the heat that seems to characterize their deliberations. 

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Accurate & Balanced Reporting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has received a fair bit of coverage from the news and editorial desks of the state’s media outlets over the past five years. Sometimes the editorial writers have criticized particular decisions in cases, sometimes particular campaign statements, and sometimes the overall structure of the court. This morning’s news story by the Madison Capital Times is the latest to decry the course of the court:

[W]hat’s certain is that the political divisions in the court, once kept behind closed doors, are now on public display. Until recently, one could hardly imagine a public meeting where one justice would accuse the chief justice of posing for ‘holy pictures,’ then addressing her as ‘kiddo,’ while another rudely dismisses a colleague’s argument as ‘ridiculous.’ ‘It’s a shame because they’re just acting like schoolchildren,’ former Justice William Bablitch says.

It’s a shame that people have such short memories, and that the Capital Times story was written in an utterly one-sided way. 

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