What is a conservative voter to do when given the choice between two political liberals for a judicial office?
Start by asking a different question. Do not ask, What to do when there are two political liberals running against one another for judge? Instead, ask, Are both candidates judicial liberals?
There is a certain sub-set of political liberals who are also judicial conservatives (or at least judicial moderates). These political liberals have the personal integrity, intellectual honesty, and self-restraint to rule on what the law says, even when it conflicts with what they personally would like the law to say.
To give an example, consider this quote from Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School in the Washington Post, discussing the upcoming SCOTUS decision in DC v. Heller, the handgun ban case, “The Supreme Court’s endorsement of an individual right would be a monumental change in federal jurisprudence, but perhaps not surprising. Even a small but growing group of liberal constitutional scholars — ‘against my political instincts,’ in the words of Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe — have endorsed the individual-right view. … Tribe, whose support of the individual right is often cited by gun rights supporters, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal recently that said the District’s law could still be upheld and urged the court to decide the case narrowly.”
I believe that Judge Lisa Neubauer of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, Second District, is a political liberal but a judicial conservative (or at least a judicial moderate). While I might not support her some years hence for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in the race against Attorney Bill Glesier, Judge Neubauer is the easy choice. I have met both Judge Neubauer and Mr. Gleiser; they both are very nice people. But a number of people whom I very much trust on these issues are agreed that Judge Neubauer possesses the preferable temperament for the bench.
As a voter in Mequon, I’ll be one of the voters faced with the choice in this race, as will all voters in Calumet, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, and Winnebago counties. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Judge Neubauer for this important seat.
P.S. On another note, allow me to associate myself with comments by Prof. Esenberg and Charlie Sykes concerning the Gableman ad that has the world abuzz. It is misleading, and I would not have run it were this my campaign.
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daniel – an honest evalution would have butler as a judicial moderate, and gableman as a political conservative but clearly a judicial liberal. gableman doesn’t even pretend to care what the reasoning is on any case he’s discussed in this campaign — he just leaps to the result, and when he disagrees with a conclusion of butler, he bluntly says he would have gotten to a different result. gableman will be pro-prosecutor no matter what the law requires. to use your words, do you have the “personal integrity” and “intellectual honesty” to admit your candidate is a judicial activist?
I know I listen to Charlie Sykes for advice on how to vote about judges. One of his wives was a judge, right?
[...] Ct. Judge Mike Brennan, and conservative retired WSC justices Steinmetz and Wilcox, among others (I associated myself with them as well). Though a political liberal, these folks all felt confident that she would bring [...]