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WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT DEBATE BETWEEN INCUMBENT DAVID PROSSER AND CHALLENGER JOANNE KLOPPENBURG

10:00 p.m. - Brendan Fischer reports:

With recently-released emails suggesting Prosser has contributed to discord on the state's highest court, Prosser recommended that greater civility could be achieved with "outside studies," and Kloppenburg questioned whether animosity between justices could cloud the decisionmaking process. She asked, "are judges making decisions based on law, or based on personal animosity?" Throughout the debate, Prosser circled back to ads being run against him by the group Greater Milwaukee Committee pointing out he did not prosecute a pedophiliac priest when Prosser was a District Attorney. "This is the worst ad ever run in a judicial campaign," he said. Both sides brought up ads run against former Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler by current Justice Michael Gableman that made the ludicrous suggestion Butler found a "loophole" to free a rapist so he could rape again (Butler was appointed the case as a public defender, got a new trial but lost at the Supreme Court, and the man served his entire sentence). While Prosser joined the half of the court that refused to censure Gableman for the ad, Prosser subtly compared it to the "pedophiliac priest" ad to turn the tables. Kloppenburg pointed out that the ads against Prosser were run by a third-party group, whereas the Gableman ads were produced by his own campaign. Nonetheless, Kloppenburg declined to ask the Greater Milwaukee Committee to take down their ads when challenged to do so by Prosser. The debate flowed into a discussion of campaign disclosure rules, an issue especially relevant in light of challenges to the state elections board expanding disclosure regulations. A case on this matter is currently pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Center for Media and Democracy has submitted an amicus brief in favor of increased disclosure. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court favored disclosure in its Citizens United decision, right-leaning groups making expenditures in the 2010 midterm elections benefitted from secrecy, suggesting that disclosure considerations would be a right-left issue. However, when asked about disclosure, Prosser suggested he would favor it, stating "I want to know who is smearing me in that third-party ad!"