Wisconsin Judgment Day, the Sequel

Even if the reimbursements do match the outgoing calls, the calls could raise questions for Gableman. As the Wisconsin State Journal notes, under Wisconsin Ethics Board rules, "it is improper and illegal for a state public official to charge the State of Wisconsin for a telephone call if the call is not primarily related to the person's official responsibility – even if the official later reimburses the State for its costs."

We'll leave it to readers to decide if these facts, to the degree we've been able to ascertain them, add up to an ethical "scandal," as the ad charges.

This week the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law calculated that Wisconsin voters were subjected to 4,789 televised Supreme Court campaign ads between Feb. 20 and March 16. The vast majority have come from third-party groups.

We'd chime in that a large number of them have been misleading.

The Gableman-Butler face-off is April 1.

Republished with permission from factcheck.org.

Sources
Hall, Dee J. "Ad rips Gableman's 2002 fundraising." Wisconsin State Journal, 19 March 2008.

Callender, David. "Butler Rips Gableman's Ads." The Capital Times, 20 March 2008.

"Remove the TV ad," editorial. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 March 2008.

Bauer, Scott. "Monitoring group slams Gabelman ad featuring convicted rapist." The Associated Press, 17 March 2008.

Forster, Stacy, Patrick Marler and Steven Walters. "TV ad by Gableman comes out swinging." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 15 March 2008.

Thomas-Lynn, Felicia. "NAACP decries campaign ad." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 18 March 2008.

State v. Mitchell, 139 Wis.2d 856, 407 N.W.2d 566

State v. Mitchell, 144 Wis.2d 596, 424 N.W.2d 698

© 2008