Even bigger bucks for Supreme Court candidates

We knew this day would come, and it has. Wisconsin state lawmakers rewrote the state’s campaign finance laws in 2015, essentially removing limits on campaign donations and making it harder to learn where the money comes from. The result is more money than ever is being spent by special interests to determine who wins Wisconsin’s elections. Look no further than the news that one candidate for next week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court primary has been given a big check by the Republican Party of Wisconsin. They gave $111,000 to Supreme Court candidate Michael Screnock’s campaign, despite the fact that the race for a seat on Wisconsin’s highest court is non-partisan. And they could give more. The limits on how much Supreme Court candidates can raise for an election are out the window. Also gone are limits on how much an individual can donate. It is no suprise then that we are seeing these big checks being written, even by political parties in races which are non-partisan. This creates at least the appearance of impropriety by judges beholden after cashing those checks. Supreme Court justices could diffuse that by tightening rules on judicial recusal, but current members of the high court have refused to do that. It appears that thanks to changes to campaign finance laws, justice is suddenly for sale in Wisconsin.