Butler’s federal nomination, downright insulting

Update! Senate Judiciary Committee is holding Butler’s confirmation hearing tomorrow at 10 a.m. Click here to read WFA’s press release on Butler’s nomination.

In the current political climate, I guess it comes as no surprise that Wisconsin voters have once again been ignored and insulted.  But it’s still incredibly frustrating!

In 2000, Judge Louis Butler ran for a seat on the State Supreme Court and was rejected by Wisconsin voters in favor of conservative Justice Diane Sykes.  No worries for Butler, however; four years later when Sykes vacated her seat for an appointment to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Gov. Jim Doyle appointed Butler to the coveted position on the state’s High Court.

Four years later, after Butler had firmly established his reputation as a liberal justice, during a hotly contested election, Wisconsin voters rejected him again in favor of another conservative, Justice Michael Gableman.  It was the first time in four decades a sitting Wisconsin Supreme Court justice lost a retention election.

So what does a slightly-used State Supreme Court Justice do when he’s been rejected by voters both times he ran in an election?  Get himself nominated to a lifetime federal judgeship in the Western District of Wisconsin, by none other than President Barack Obama.

And of course, Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators (both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee that held Butler’s nomination hearing), could not be happier with the nomination, since they recommended it.  This blatant disregard for Wisconsin voters might lead some to question Kohl and Feingold’s loyalty to the people they’re supposed to be representing.

In the meantime, Gov. Doyle is getting ready to sign into law a bill that would increase (to a scarily unlimited amount–at the taxpayers’ expense no less!) public financing of State Supreme Court elections.  This despite Wisconsin’s bad history of public financing of elections…