Daughter of Supreme Court chief withdraws support of candidate Rebecca Dallet following criticism

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

State Supreme Court candidate Rebecca Dallet has lost a key endorsement after criticizing the operation of the high court under the leadership of Chief Justice Patience Roggensack.

Roggensack's daughter, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Ellen Brostrom, had supported Dallet, who is also a Milwaukee County judge, during the three-way primary contest for an opening on the Supreme Court. Brostrom is a close personal friend of Dallet's.

But Brostrom's name no longer appears on a list of officials supporting Dallet on the candidate's website. Roggensack hasn't endorsed Dallet or her opponent, Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock.

"Judge Brostrom withdrew her support following Dallet's criticism of the Supreme Court and the chief justice, in particular," said a source close to Brostrom.

Brostrom did not return calls.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock exchange views in a recent debate.

Jessica Lovejoy, Dallet's campaign manager, said: "Wisconsin's Supreme Court is broken. Chief Justice Roggensack may not like it, but Judge Dallet is running to take on special interest influence and to return balance to our highest court."

In her appearances, Dallet has been a regular critic of the Supreme Court and special interest money.

"My opponent is bought and paid for by the big-moneyed special interests that have had far too much influence over our court in recent years," Dallet said at a debate earlier this month.

Earlier in the debate, she cited the high court's recusal rule, which she said was "promulgated by the very group that has paid for our Supreme Court and has spent millions of dollars buying justices."

Dallet has been particularly critical of the spending by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's busy lobby, in Supreme Court races.

WMC has dropped more than $500,000 to help Schrenock in the current contest. In 2013, the group spent about $500,000 in Roggensack's successful re-election bid.

"What they will expect in exchange for the money they have spent on my opponent is what they have gotten from the people that they have spent it on up until now," Dallet said in the debate, "which is that those individuals will do their bidding, that they will sit on cases where millions of dollars have been spent on them and say, 'I don't have to recuse myself.' "

Such criticism certainly would not have gone over well with Roggensack.

Last year, the chief justice gave a speech in which she chided the media, campaign watchdogs and former and current justices for engaging in "tough talk" about the courts, saying it was undermining their "institutional legitimacy."

"It is quite clear we have an emerging challenge for our judiciary, state and federal, elected and appointed," Roggensack said during the annual Hallows Lecture at the Marquette University Law School. "We must maintain and protect the institutional legitimacy of our courts."

Also on Friday, the executive director of Wisconsin Republican Party filed an ethics complaint against Dallet with the state Judicial Commission for collecting campaign contributions from attorneys who had cases before her.

Lovejoy called the filing baseless.

“The Screnock campaign is running scared,” she said in a statement. “Partisan attack dogs can file all the baseless complaints they want, it won’t fix his lack of experience or allegiance to big-money special interests.”

Screnock’s campaign issued a statement ripping into Dallet for “conduct that damages the public’s trust in our justice system,” but Screnock declined to say what he thought of Justice Michael Gableman ruling on cases involving a law firm that had provided him free legal representation.

Screnock and Dallet are seeking Gableman’s seat. Gableman has endorsed Screnock.

In 2011, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Gableman was represented at no cost by Michael Best & Friedrich — Screnock’s firm at the time — in a judicial ethics case. Gableman did not publicly disclose the no-fee arrangement while hearing cases involving the firm.

Screnock campaign consultant Sean Lansing declined to say if Screnock thought Gableman’s handling of those cases was wrong given his views on Dallet’s fundraising from attorneys, saying this race is about current candidates, not Gableman.

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.