On April 5, Wisconsinites will go to the poll to pick a new supreme court justice. The election has gained prominence because many political analysts believe the Budget Repair Bill may one day end up before the high court. Throughout the campaign, challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg has claimed she is politically unbiased and impartial. However analysis of her political history, donations and comments have called that into question. Now Media Trackers has learned that Kloppenburg accepted a campaign donation from the husband of Judge Maryann Sumi, the judge who caused a firestorm of controversy by blocking Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill.
Additionally, Sumi’s husband, Carl Sinderbrand, an environmental lawyer, also represents a party in a pending case in which Kloppenburg is defending the other side – the state DNR.
Underscoring the growing ties between her campaign and attempts to stop Walker’s agenda, Kloppenburg’s campaign website boasts an endorsement from a vocal member of the “Wisconsin 14” – one of the Democratic senators who fled the state, Sen. Chris Larson.
According to Wispolitics.com, Kloppenburg said during a debate with incumbent David Prosser this week that “she also wouldn’t need to recuse herself from any cases on the collective bargaining bill because she has remained independent during the protests in Madison.”
However, the donation from Sumi’s husband raises serious questions as to whether Kloppenburg, if victorious, could even hear the state Attorney General’s challenge to Sumi’s ruling, which could eventually reach the state Supreme Court.
The case in which Sinderbrand and Kloppenburg are both involved on opposite sides – is already in front of the state Supreme Court “awaiting opinion/decision.” The case, Curt Andersen v. Department of Natural Resources, involves a group of environmentalists and others who are trying to stop the DNR from granting a waste water discharge permit to a Green Bay company.
Kloppenburg also accepted a campaign donation from a second environmental lawyer, Dennis Grezezinski, of Midwest Environmental Advocates, who is also involved in the case. And she accepted money from a man with the same name as one of the parties in that case.
Court records list Kloppenburg as the attorney for the state Department of Natural Resources, the respondent in the case. Kloppenburg filed a brief with the court as recently as September 2010.
The amounts donated by Sinderbrand and most others to Kloppenburg’s campaign are small. That’s because of the rules needed to gain public financing, which Kloppenburg accepted. According to the Government Accountability Board, to receive public financing, she had to obtain donations from 1,000 separate contributors- but they couldn’t total more than $15,000. (Individual donations had to range from $5 to no more than $100). Like many others Sinderbrand gave just $5 on Dec. 26, 2010; however, in so doing, he helped Kloppenburg qualify for public financing for her campaign, so the amount didn’t matter so much, as the focus was to get 1,000 unique contributors.
(Media Trackers previously reported that Sumi’s husband also donated to the campaigns of three of the so called ‘Badger 14,’ and to Tom Barrett in the last gubernatorial election. Her son, Jake Sinderbrand, is a former employee of the AFL-CIO and SEIU).
In the social media arena, Larson, whose endorsement Kloppenburg touts, has thrown his support behind her with tweets like his March 20th post “Full house to hear JoAnne Kloppenburg for Supreme Court. Vote April 5th!” Larson has also been particularly incendiary on the matter of the budget debate and Walker, tweeting: “Walker & his Republicans continue to find new lows to go to as the power grab and culture of corruption continues” and “What Republicans did was an affront to democracy. Never shall a voter doubt which party stands for the working class, and which for the rich.”
Others listed as endorsing Kloppenburg include a series of failed Democratic candidates and/or prominent Democratic politicians, including:
- Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk
- Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz
- Rep. Fred Kessler
- Rep. Leon Young
- Scott Hassett, former DNR secretary and Democratic candidate for state Attorney General
Kloppenburg also boasts endorsements from a number of public defenders, including the recently retired head of the state public defender’s office, Nicholas Chiarkas. More disturbing she has endorsements from lawyers who work on behalf of criminal defendants’ rights, such as Keith Findley, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which obtained the release of Steven Avery, now convicted in the murder of a young photographer.
Kloppenburg’s own campaign donations, the donations made by Sinderband, and who she has chosen to align herself with during the campaign clearly call into her question her motives for sitting on the high court and her capacity to bring impartiality to the bench.
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