Should Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Still be Elected?

Early this morning, I did my civic duty and, before going to work, I stopped at our local polling place and cast my vote for the April elections.

The big ticket item on the ballot this election was for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and comes down to a battle between incumbent David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. As I was walking into the voting booth, something important occurred to me; should this election be happening?

For the record, I voted for Prosser. He has held his position for 12 years and, in doing my research, I saw no reason to feel he wasn’t doing a good job. However, as I cast my vote for him, I began to question the idea of having an important position such as Supreme Court Justice being held by a politician.

The United States Supreme Court is appointed rather than elected and the justices serve life-time terms. The reason our forefathers choose to do this, in my opinion, is it reduces corruption because, once appointed, it is nearly impossible to remove a sitting Supreme Court judge. A politician can appoint someone to the court (with legislative approval) but has no guarantee that person will rule in their favor on any given issue and, since they serve life-time terms (or until they decide to retire) the court doesn’t change simply because of an election. This creates a true balance of power.

In comparison, Wisconsin Supreme Court judges are elected and only serve for 10-years before they are up for re-election. The problem with this is, even though justices are officially non-partisan, they still receive their backing from the same special interest groups as partisan candidates.

Kloppenburg, for example, is suddenly a legitimate contender because Wisconsin’s public unions are throwing their political support behind her campaign as a way of attacking Governor Scott Walker and the bills that would strip unions of their collective bargaining rights. Even though she is non-partisan and is supposed to be impartial when making her rulings, I find it hard to believe she will truly be unbiased when the union bill hits the Supreme Court knowing, if public unions lose their power, she probably won’t be re-elected. And, the same could be said of Prosser voting in favor of the bill because of the Republican support he received.

In fact, the only reason I voted for Prosser in this election is I can see from his history that he has remained impartial. I can’t say that about a new comer like Kloppenburg.

I would love to see Wisconsin change its constitution to make it more like the US Constitution when it comes to the Supreme Court. Justices should be appointed to their seats rather than elected and shouldn’t owe any favors to anyone.