Writer before gave false info

Dear Editor,

Last week’s letter titled “10 Million Reasons” criticized Justice Protasiewicz’ campaign for accepting $10 million from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. I will be the first to agree that there is too much money in politics, especially in our recent Supreme Court race. However, the writer failed to mention that Daniel Kelly and supporters spent $17.6 million on his campaign.

Moreover, Justice Protasiewicz has stated that she will recuse herself from any cases in which the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is a litigant. 

In total, Justice Protasiewicz and her supporters spent $23.3 million on her campaign. ( Associated Press reporting on the tabulation by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign for both campaigns, April 4,2023). 

It is noteworthy that five weeks before the election the Republican Party purchased  $1 million worth of Advertizing on behalf of Daniel Kelly. ( Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Molly Beck, 2/28/23). It seems to me that that the amount of money spent by both campaigns and their supporters is unhealthy in a democracy. 

Daniel Kelly probably wished he could have raised as much money as Justice Protasiewicz. Still, $17.6 million is an awesome sum.  Indeed, it exceeded the total amount of $10 million that was spent by both Kelly and Jill Karovsky when Kelly lost to Justice Karovsky in his previous campaign for the Supreme Court. 

Further, the writer alleged, without proof,  that Justice Protasiewicz had deep ethical issues regarding her ill fated marriage to an older Judge who had 3 grown children. Justice Protasiewicz was in her 30’s and the marriage lasted 3 months.  One of the judge’s children alleged that Justice Protasiewicz somehow abused her husband; an allegation that Justice Protasiewicz strongly denied. ( Wikipedia, Janet Protasiewicz). In any event, this was decades ago and had been reported during the campaign. The voters favored Justice Protasiewicz by 11 percentage points suggesting that this “old news” didn’t raise the ethical issues the writer claimed. 

Finally, the writer engaged in a false comparison when he asserted that impeaching Protasiewicz is not undermining our democracy because this was her first election to the Supreme Court whereas his friend Todd Novak has won many elections. That’s an argument that is difficult to follow so I won’t even try to explain it.

Steve Pieroni

Dodgeville, WI