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| David Prosser |
In the summer of 2008, I was contacted by a source who indicated that Justice David Prosser was interested in publishing a piece in Milwaukee Magazine. This was not long after news stories ran describing how he handled an accusation of clergy sex abuse back in 1978, when he was an Outagamie County District Attorney.
At least one media outlet wrongly described Prosser as a Catholic, which gave the misleading impression he had bent over backward to accommodate leaders of his own religion. The incident also occurred more than two decades before the issue of clergy sex abuse was finally discovered by the media and legal authorities. Prosser’s handling of the case, which he most lately explained in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, certainly looks bad in retrospect but probably resembles what many other prosecutors might have done back then if confronted with such a case.
At any rate, Prosser felt deeply wronged by the media coverage, the source said, and was seriously considering publishing his own version of what happened. Milwaukee Magazine has a long history of covering the media in its Pressroom column and of offering a fresh slant on the news you wouldn’t find elsewhere, regardless of its ideological impact. I told the source the magazine would gladly consider anything Prosser might like to write.
For whatever reason, Prosser changed his mind. Perhaps an adviser told him it might not be a good idea to take on the media. Now the case has come back to haunt him. The liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee has run ads criticizing Prosser, with the tag line, “Tell David Prosser judges should protect our children, not sex offenders.”
In his recent debate with challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, Prosser called the ad despicable and said the ad includes “statements that are highly misleading and put me in a false light.”
The ad compresses the facts in a misleading fashion. It suggests Prosser knew he was dealing with a priest who had abused for 30 years; in fact Prosser knew only about two recent incidents. And it suggests Prosser colluded with the archdiocese to transfer the priest elsewhere, which grossly simplifies what happened.
Prosser, in short, has reason to complain, but his protest could hardly be more ironic. For as a state Supreme Court Justice, Prosser had a chance to send a message about a far worse ad, the one by Michael Gableman, when he ran against then-Justice Louis Butler. The ad accused Butler of using a loophole to get a child sex offender out of jail early, thus enabling the man to commit another crime. In fact the criminal served his full sentence and only then committed another crime. This ad, moreover, was not by some shadowy third party, but was run by Gableman’s campaign. Finally, it was ugly in its racial connotation: Gableman sought to link Butler, a black justice, with a black criminal.
Yet Prosser wrote an opinion (joined by two other justices) that argued Gableman did not violate the judicial ethics code when he ran this ad. In essence, he set the ethical bar as low as he could, and now he’s suffering similar (though far less egregious) treatment.
Adding more irony, Prosser’s heated complaints to Kloppenburg make him look just a bit intemperate. They make him look rather like the justice who wrote an email calling Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy” her.
I have some sympathy for Prosser when it comes to Abrahamson. The Chief Justice is undoubtedly the smartest justice in the state Supreme Court, but she has a long history of friction with other justices, both conservative and liberal, going back to at least the late 1980s. She is the sort of person, one suspects, who lords it over lesser mortals.
But if Prosser has been put in a box, beset by what he considers an unfair ad, and unable to defend himself without appearing injudicious, well, he might reflect on what happened to Butler. This was a man of integrity and a truly temperate, well-liked justice, who quite possibly lost his bid for reelection because of an outright lie. Prosser’s opinion opened the door to any candidate for the state’s highest court to get elected through the foulest of means. He may end up hoist on his own petard.
Odd Editorials From the JS
“Check the freshness date,” wrote David Haynes, the new JS editorial page editor, in a column complaining that County Executive candidate Chris Abele touted the newspaper’s endorsement of him in a TV ad without noting the endorsement was only for the Feb. 15 primary.
This, of course, presents the absurd possibility the newspaper will actually switch to Abele’s opponent Jeff Stone for the general election. Just seven weeks later.
After all, Haynes (sort of) explained, the newspaper is still gathering information on the two candidates. Well, if they didn’t have sufficient information to make the right judgment back in February, why make any endorsement?
When I worked at the newspaper, it was not unheard of, in the case of less important elections (for alderman, say, or county supervisor) for the reporter who covered the election to be asked by the editorial board for a recommendation – because they didn’t have time to interview every candidate. So why endorse at all, if you have so little information? Apparently, the newspaper feels its king-making role is so important it must endorse even when it knows little about the head it wants us to crown.
In the case of the Abele, it’s obvious why he got the nod: he was the least ideological, the safest and least controversial choice. Jeff Stone was conservative, Jim Sullivan was liberal. Better to take the guy in the middle, even if he’s the weakest of the candidates. As it turned out, Abele barely beat Sullivan (who took third). It’s just possible the newspaper’s endorsement made the difference for Abele. And now the JS is going to tell us they made a mistake?
The newspaper has also changed its position on residency for city employees. Back in 1995, both the liberal Milwaukee Journal and the conservative Milwaukee Sentinel ran editorials opposing a legislative attempt to end the residency requirement. As the Sentinel noted, “Milwaukee officials believe about 7,400 city and Milwaukee Public School employees would move out of the city within 10 years if the law were passed. That exodus would mean a decline in residential property value of as much as $550 million.”
Now the newspaper supports ending the requirement for teachers and police and fire fighters. Alas, its editorial is much more poorly reasoned than those of its predecessor newspapers. “Our guess is that many (city employees) won’t leave, “ the paper declares. Their guess? Apparently the writer hadn’t read the paper’s own news story which reported a study showing 60 percent of city workers in Baltimore, 45 percent in Detroit, 70 percent in Minneapolis and 75 percent of police and fire fighters in St. Louis left the city after the residency requirement was ended. Or the editorialist might have just counted the JS editors and reporters living in the city. There aren’t many.
Ah, but the city will then have more people to choose from when hiring employees, the editorial noted, ignoring the information from city officials that it has large numbers of applicants for police and fire jobs. It’s not a very persuasive editorial and suggests the outlook of a paper that is increasingly moving away from city in its coverage and its outlook. The old Milwaukee Sentinel was far more urban, it seems.
The Buzz
-My column last week exaggerated the differences between choice schools and Milwaukee Public Schools. Choice schools cannot pick and choose who they enroll; initial enrollments are on a random basis (though the schools can expel any student at their discretion). And choice schools do have some special education students: 3 percent have been certified as special education, compared to 19 percent in MPS, and surveys suggest the number could be higher than 3 percent for choice schools.
-In its effort to recall Democrat state senators, Republicans are running ads saying collective bargaining rules mean the best teachers (those lacking seniority) get fired first. That has certainly been true on occasion, but this is a complete flip-flop from the reasons offered by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans for killing unions, which was to save money. As I’ve noted before, their unwillingness to build any policy reason for this revolutionary law may come back to haunt them.
-Liberal blogger Bill Christofferson suggests many problems with the proposed spin-off of UW-Madison, including the proposed oversight board: “Walker would get to appoint 11 of the 21 members of the new board right away, putting his loyalists (and donors) in charge. They would serve three-year terms, so are easily replaceable if they don’t follow Walker’s dictates. (Regents serve seven-year staggered terms, which gives them more independence.)” I would only add that this board would also allow a Democratic successor to have control of the state’s flagship university. It’s a bad idea no matter which party’s candidate is governor.
–Charlie Sykes and Dan Bice discuss Jeff Stone’s “uninspiring” campaign. Pressroom reports.
-And is UW-Madison coach Bo Ryan overrated? Sports Nut weighs in.
-Readers will note that my column is now part of our new Inside Milwaukee website. Please let me know if you have any problems registering to make a comment.
