Supreme Weekly: Elections past and future

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April 21, 2011

This week's article looks at a lawsuit filed over the 2010 election, spending reports in this year's Wisconsin Supreme Court election, and potential candidates for next year's elections.

WISCONSIN

As covered in Kloppenburg seeks statewide recount, Wisconsin Supreme Court challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg has officially requested a statewide recount for the hotly contested race on April 5.

This week, the organization Wisconsin Democracy Campaign announced that $5.4 million was spent on that race. While that sounds like an astronomical number, it is actually a decrease from the amount spent in both the 2007 and 2008 campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Both candidates received public funds for their campaigns, totaling between $750,000 and $850,000. (The variance accounts for assumed spending reports that will not be due until July.)

So whose money made up the other $4.5 million? Thirty-five special interest groups. Four main groups contributed $2.7 million to David Prosser's cause: Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Citizens for a Strong America, Club for Growth Wisconsin and Tea Party Express, all conservative fund raising groups. Kloppenburg's platform received a $1.8 million boost from special interest groups, predominantly from the Greater Wisconsin Committee, which was created in 2004 to support Democratic candidates for office.

OHIO

Making headlines for a potential campaign in 2012 are two candidates who hope to challenge Ohio Supreme Court Justice Yvette McGee Brown as she runs for election to the seat she was appointed to. Sharon L. Kennedy and Judith French are already traversing the state to gather support for a Republican nomination in 2012. Kennedy is a Domestic Relations judge on the Butler County Court of Common Pleas. French is the presiding judge of the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals.

Brown was appointed by Governor Ted Strickland to succeed Maureen O'Connor, after she was elected to the position of Chief Justice in 2010 election. Brown is currently the only Democrat serving on the Supreme Court.

ALABAMA

In the intersection between the courts and politics, we should mention that Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court has created an exploratory committee to run for President of the U.S. in 2012. Moore was famously voted off the Court by his fellow justices, after ignoring an order by a federal judge to remove the Ten Commandments from in front of the courthouse. He also had the monument installed there. So far his platform seems to be focused primarily on conservative social issues.

TEXAS

Last week, former candidate for the Texas Supreme Court, Rick Green filed a civil lawsuit against a number of parties for libel. He contends that these individuals and organizations ruined his chances of winning election, by creating "...character assassination by the concoction and reporting of absolute falsehoods..."

The allegations occur between when Green was one of two candidates to emerge victorious after the March 2 Republican Primary and the primary runoff election on April 13, 2010. The petition filed by Green states that "Defendants engaged in actions, some individual and some collaborative, that constitute libel under the defamation laws of the state of Texas." Also, the petition states that the defendants ruined his reputation not just among voters, but also aimed to damage is political and speaking career.

The defendants named in the case are specific individuals, the Texas Tribune, including one of its writers, the Texas Bipartisan Justice Committee and a member of its organization and the Texas Association of Realtors, Inc. and its Political Action Committee.

See also

• Supreme Weekly: Checking in with Alabama, Connecticut, Florida and Arkansas
• Judgepedia's Supreme Weekly: The States