Wisconsin Supreme Court election attracts attention

April's Wisconsin Supreme Court election continues to attract attention, most recently on the front page of the May 25th New York Times.

In the election a little know and inexperienced Burnett County Circuit Court judge, Michael J. Gableman, defeated Wisconsin's only African American Supreme Court Justice, Louis Butler. Over $5 million was spent, mainly by outside groups on negative ads. As Paul Soglin, among others have noted, the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) has spent huge amounts in the state's last two Supreme Court elections in an effort to promote hard line Republican candidates with very weak credentials.

The Times reports that Gableman's campaign ran a negative, racially charged ad that accused Butler of using a loophole to free a convicted rapist who then went on to rape again. Many believe that the "loophole Louie" label and the Willie Horton style ad were so effective that they led to Gableman's narrow margin of victory.

Normally, state boosters would welcome a feature story on the front page of one of the most prominent papers in the country. But this isn't the kind of publicity that Wisconsin needs. It certainly won't help keep or attract young professionals, particularly young people of color, to the state. But, what the hey, we earned it at the ballot box.

Adam Liptik writes that:

Last month, Wisconsin voters did something that is routine in the United States but virtually unknown in the rest of the world: They elected a judge.

The vote came after a bitter $5 million campaign in which a small-town trial judge with thin credentials ran a television advertisement falsely suggesting that the only black justice on the state Supreme Court had helped free a black rapist. The challenger unseated the justice with 51 percent of the vote, and will join the court in August...

The question of how best to select judges has baffled lawyers and political scientists for centuries, but in the United States most states have made their choice in favor of popular election. The tradition goes back to Jacksonian populism, and supporters say it has the advantage of making judges accountable to the will of the people. A judge who makes a series of unpopular decisions can be challenged in an election and removed from the bench...

In the rest of the world, the usual selection methods emphasize technical skill and insulate judges from the popular will, tilting in the direction of independence. The most common methods of judicial selection abroad are appointment by an executive branch official, which is how federal judges in the United States are chosen, and a sort of civil service made up of career professionals.

The entire article is linked.

Who is Paul Singer and why is he trying to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court?

Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman has outraised Justice Louis Butler in late contributions by more than $30,000 with more than three-fourths of his money coming from five donors who hit the maximum according to late contribution reports filed at the Government Accountability Board. The reports cover anything that's come in since the close of the last reporting period, March 17. Since then, Gableman has received 24 donations totaling $77,360, compared to 55 donations totaling $46,200 for Butler.

Gableman received $10,000 donations -- the maximum -- from Paul Singer, general partner at Elliott Management in New York City, and Bonnie Loeb, the executive assistant at the company. Jay Newman of New York, whose occupation was listed as finance, also gave $10,000.

Gableman also received $10,000 each from Gordon Singer and Jenny Singer. That's' $50,000 from Paul Singer's family and firm!

So who is Paul Singer and why is this New Yorker hedge fund manager so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?

Paul Singer is an up-and-coming GOP funder. He gave $5K to the Swift Boaters in 2004 and $500,000 to Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential campaign. He runs Elliott Asset Management, a New York hedge fund known by some as a "vulture fund," so-named because it buys debt cheaply from cash-starved countries, and then sues them for the full repayment, pocketing scarce funds that would otherwise be invested in education, clean water, medicine and debt relief.

Singer is generally known as the original 'vulture' of the for-profit so-called 'vulture funds', which buy government bonds from poor countries and demand an exorbitant return on their loans.

In 1996, Singer bought up some of the debt of Peru for $11 million and got back $58 million. He purchased a bond from the Democratic Republic of Congo for about $10 million, sued in court for $400 million and ended up with $127 million... His estimated personal net worth is $700 million.

Greg Palast explains how a vulture operation works. The vulture fund buys up the debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest — sometimes more than ten times what they paid for it. Singer, for example, paid just $10 million for Congo Brazzaville’s debt and is now suing for over $400 million.

Singer knew he’d turn a 1000%-plus profit on his $10 million investment with George Bush’s help.

Bush convinced the US Congress to forgive the money Congo owes the US taxpayer, but once the US taxpayer forgives Congo’s debt, the vulture, Singer, swoops in with lawyers to claim, “Congo now has the money to pay ME.”

But wait a minute - the debt money given up by US taxpayers wasn’t supposed to go to a predator like Singer. In fact, the US Constitution provides power to the President to stop vultures from suing a foreign country in a US court if the President states such a private lawsuit interferes with America’s foreign policy.

Singer, by suing Congo for the taxpayer money meant for debt relief and medicine, is interfering with US foreign policy. Yet, the President has remained silent.

Gableman isn't the only one benefiting from Singer's largess.

Singer was in charge of Northeastern fundraising for Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential bid.
He was Giuliani's largest fundraiser.

In August, Singer graduated from fundraising to policy becoming Giuliani's "Senior Policy Adviser."

Paul Singer also made news in September when he admitted to providing all of the funds ($175,000) to put a referendum on the California ballot to divide the state's 55 Electors according to Congressional Districts, which would give the GOP 20 Electors that would otherwise go to the Democrat - roughly the size of Ohio or Pennsylvania. When Singer's role was exposed, the staff all quit and the effort went on hold - presumably until Singer finds a less-traceable way to launder his money.

So now we know who Paul Singer is- a very wealthy and unscrupulous hedge fund manager who contributes a lot of money to Republican candidates. But why has he become so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election?

Is his interest simply ideological or could Singer have an financial interest in an upcoming Supreme Court case?