Statement of the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee

One Wisconsin Now had asked the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee to examine campaign literature for Judge Michael Gableman. Judge Gableman has announced he intends to run against incumbent Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler. The Committee was formed by our State Bar's President Tom Basting. (see this earlier post)

The Committee has now posted its decision at our State Bar's web site.

The Committee indicates it will take no "formal action". It goes on to remind everyone else of the proper role of a judge.

To phrase it in the vernacular, judges and justices are expected to be referees who call the “balls and strikes” as the law and the facts of a case require; they are not expected to express bias for or against one party or another.

It would seem to follow that the Committee is to a judicial election as a referee is to a baseball game.