Image 01 Image 03

Scott Walker Tag

A few years before Trump won the 2016 election, there was another effort by the left to undo the results of an election. Remember the repeated and unsuccessful efforts to remove former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker from office?

Wisconsin Supreme Court election fights have been some of the most intense and bizarre elections we have covered over the years. According to US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert, "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges." Maybe, maybe not, but in Wisconsin there sure are conservative and liberal judges, and the battle for control of the court has moved in sync with the battle by former Governor Scott Walker to wrestle control of the state from public sector employee unions.

The "John Doe" investigations of Wisconsin conservatives, targeting particularly Governor Scott Walker, was a shameful chapter of political abuse of the prosecutorial process. My most recent post was The rotting corpse of Wisconsin’s John Doe investigation still stinks, which details the history of investigations based on unconstitutional attempts to silence conservatives. The cases eventually were thrown out and shut down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. But not until lives had been ruined, and people terrorized.

You may recall the two John Doe investigations of Scott Walker, his supporters and almost the entire Wisconsin conservative movement. It was a nasty, vicious investigation which saw military-style raids in the middle of the night. There was John Doe No. 1, investigating Scott Walker’s time as Milwaukee County Executive. They never came up with any wrongdoing by him.

In our report earlier, we noted that the "Resistance" to Donald Trump is unlike anything seen in the opposition to Obama, The “Resistance” Moves Towards Violence and Intimidation as Key Tactic. The opposition to Trump is becoming increasingly violent, and explicitly seeks to drive political intimidation into personal spaces by confronting Republicans everywhere they walk, talk and eat. This total war on Trump's administration and supporters by the media, Democrats, and a vast array of well-funded leftist groups might seem like a reaction to ... Trump. That would be a myopic view. The tactics you are seeing play out nationally had a dry run.

Who's the horror movie figure that keeps on popping up just when you think you've killed him? That's pretty much the nature of the anti-conservative witch hunt carried out under Wisconsin's so-called John Doe law. Every time the investigation seemed to be beat, the investigating prosecutors would rear their ugly heads. There was John Doe No. 1, investigating Scott Walker's time as Milwaukee County Executive. They never came up with any wrongdoing by him. Then there was John Doe No. 2, regarding Walker's alleged unlawful collusion with conservative groups during the recall election. It is John Doe No. 2 that has generated litigation over the past three years. In the end, every court that ruled on the issue found that the entire prosecution legal theory was legally unfounded -- that even if these conservative groups did what they were alleged to have done, it was constitutionally protected speech and not illegal. Lives were ruined over an attempt to punish constitutionally protected speech by conservatives. We have several dozen posts about the history of John Doe No. 2 . Scroll through our John Doe (WI) tag. The investigation was revealed in The Wall Street Journal on November 18, 2013, Wisconsin Political Speech Raid - Subpoenas hit allies of Scott Walker as his re-election campaign looms:

Welcome to our live coverage of the third night of this year's Republican National Convention! Primetime speeches kick off at 7:30 EST. Watch speakers live and see real time commentary from political media and LI authors. I'll be updating throughout the evening as the situation warrants. Full speeches can be found beneath the Twitter feeds as they're available.

The lineup:

Because I have been traveling, I'm late to this important development. In early April we reported how a State court judge throws out Wisconsin Right to Work Law in an absurd decision:
When conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election last Tuesday, we pointed out how important that court has been in upholding union reforms. That may be tested again as Dane County Judge William Foust in Madison just threw out the state’s Right to Work law signed by Governor Walker a year ago. The decision was under the “takings” clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. As in an eminent domain case, the court found that the union’s interest in compulsory dues payments was property, that the property was taken by the right to work law for a public purpose, but without just compensation....

When conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election last Tuesday, we pointed out how important that court has been in upholding union reforms. That may be tested again as Dane County Judge William Foust in Madison just threw out the state's Right to Work law signed by Governor Walker a year ago. The decision was under the "takings" clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. As in an eminent domain case, the court found that the union's interest in compulsory dues payments was property, that the property was taken by the right to work law for a public purpose, but without just compensation. The decision was announced by Attorney General Brad D. Schimel on the Vicki McKenna Show. The Decision is embedded at the bottom of this post.

All eyes are on Wisconsin. Before I get to today's primary, let's take a look back at one of my favorite political periods in the history of the world - the defeat of the Recall against Governor Scott Walker after over a year of protests against the public sector union collective bargaining reform bill. It was what I called Wisconsin's Long, Strange Trip, linking to our exhaustive coverage of all the crazy:
Police insurrections.  Palace guardsCatch a Senator contests.  Doctors behaving badly.  Massive national solidarity protests which weren’tIdentity theft as political theater.  Shark jumping.  Legislators who run away to other states.  Busbang bangs.  Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like EgyptiansBeer attacksCanoe flotillas.  (alleged) Judicial chokeholds.  Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight.  Endless recalls.  And recounts.  Communications Directors making threats.   Judges who think they are legislators (well, I’ll grant you that one is common).  V-K DayHole-y warriors.  Cities namedSpeculation and Conjecture.  And the funniest blog headline so far:
First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs
When Walker defeated the Recall late in the evening of June 5, 2012, it was Oh what a night. That was a time when the Legal Insurrection community was more united and cohesive, and thousands of us celebrated the win with the inaugural launch of website fireworks and John Phillip Sousa music:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appeared on the Charlie Sykes radio show in Wisconsin and endorsed ... Ted Cruz. It was a very strong endorsement for Cruz, not an anti-Trump endorsement. Walker said he was "all in" for Cruz. https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/714817364588634112 Scott Walker Statement Endorsing Ted Cruz