CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The money democrats poured into Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign for state Supreme Court was the best political investment… ever.
The Dems cleared the deck for her nomination, so much so that Democrat voters were free to meddle in the Republican party primary, propelling Daniel Kelly into the general election. Another Republican judge, Jennifer Dorow, was a stronger candidate.
Protasiewiwc was free to campaign as the liberal that she is. She ran TV commercials touting herself as a pro-choice judge. She even had the cash to buy ads in the Super Bowl. Everyone who voted for her knew how she’d rule on yet-to-be-heard cases about abortion in Wisconsin.
And Judge Janet has delivered the goods for her backers. Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on abortion has been struck down, on the false premise that the oldness of a law determines its validity. Coming soon: Wisconsin’s newly liberal court will determine that there is a fundamental right to abortion, even though it is made up out of whole cloth. There is nothing in law or in our constitution that defines such a right. But such a case is in the pipeline, and the outcome is preordained.
If you checked out of the news cycle during Independence Day week, you missed other whopper court rulings that delight the political left. Large parts of Act 10 have been ruled unconstitutional by a Dane County judge. Teachers union reforms are out. That decision will be upheld by the state’s highest court. And absentee ballot drop boxes, which are actually ballot harvesting receptacles, are legal again – even though the state constitution says the legislature makes election law, and our lawmakers have never approved drop boxes.
Justice Janet’s presence on the state’s highest court should be a never-ending reminder to conservates that elections do have consequences. A majority-liberal court, acting as a super-legislature, has wiped out ten years of hard-won gains by conservatives in Wisconsin. How much longer until our state’s political right decides to rally around the strongest candidate, and unite behind them to victory? Or will we continue to cede ground to our political opponents?
Chris Conley
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