Former Obama AG Eric Holder to campaign for Rebecca Dallet in Wisconsin high court race

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Former President Barack Obama's attorney general will campaign in Milwaukee and Madison this week to boost Rebecca Dallet's campaign for state Supreme Court.

Eric Holder's visits to the state's Democratic powerhouses highlight the national attention and heavy spending the April 3 election is generating.

It also brings attention to questions about whether justices must step aside in cases involving their backers.

Dallet, a Milwaukee County judge, has criticized the high court's ethics rules as too weak but said Tuesday she did not know if the spending by Holder's group was so extensive that it would prevent her from hearing cases involving the group if she is elected. That brought cries of hypocrisy from the campaign of her opponent, Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock.

Holder's group, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, is spending $140,000 on digital ads backing Dallet and last month sued GOP Gov. Scott Walker to try to force him to hold elections to fill two vacant seats in the state Legislature.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock debate earlier this month in Milwaukee.

Dallet will not appear at the Holder events and she said she was not familiar with his spending plans.

In a Tuesday appearance before the Dane County Bar Association, Dallet decried as too loose the state Supreme Court's rule that allows judges and justices to remain on cases involving those who bankrolled efforts to elect them.

Afterward, she told reporters she did not know whether the campaign activity by Holder's group would require her to step aside from a case involving the group if she were elected.

"It might," she said but added she did not know if $140,000 in spending was enough to force a justice off a case.

"Certainly if millions of dollars were spent on my campaign by a party in a case that was sitting in front of me ... then I would recuse myself. And I think that distinguishes me from Judge Screnock, who refuses to make those assurances."

Screnock has shown support for the existing recusal rules but has suggested Dallet should be consistent and agree to step aside in cases involving Holder's group if she is elected because of the stance she has taken on judicial ethics rules.

Screnock campaign consultant Sean Lansing said he had trouble buying the idea she would step aside, as she signaled in a recent tweet. Lansing noted the Wisconsin State Journal reported last week that Dallet had remained on a case involving attorneys from her husband's law firm even though she said she would not.

"I think it's hard to take a tweet about recusal from Judge Dallet seriously when the facts don't match her rhetoric," Lansing said by email.

Lansing said Screnock would step aside from matters before him on a case-by-case basis.

He said Holder's visit showed Dallet was "saying one thing and doing another" because she was getting help from an outside group while decrying the role of money in politics.

Holder's group is focused on electing Democrats and fighting legislative and congressional maps that favor Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges in 2016 determined the maps for Wisconsin's Assembly were so beneficial to Republicans that they violated the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering that case and is expected to more clearly define what the rules are for drawing maps for political advantage.

Holder's group is not involved in that case but is expected to be active in litigation around the country over maps that are drawn after the 2020 Census. Such a case could make its way to Wisconsin's Supreme Court.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The lawsuit by Holder's group seeking to force elections to fill vacancies in the state Legislature could also make its way to the Supreme Court, but that case is likely to be resolved before the winner of the court election is seated in August.

Holder announced last month that he would campaign in Wisconsin, and Politico on Tuesday first reported on his specific plans. Holder's group later confirmed them.

Holder's first stop in Wisconsin will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at 3427 W. Saint Paul Ave. in Milwaukee. It will be a roundtable discussion about voting rights and redistricting sponsored by Black Leaders Organizing for Communities.

His second visit will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union. The event is being hosted by NextGen Wisconsin, the state arm of a political group founded by billionaire climate change activist Tom Steyer.