Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser issued an opinion Wednesday saying he did not need to step aside from cases over an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker‘s campaign even though groups spent millions of dollars to support both him and the governor.
Prosser’s decision revealed two of the people caught up in the investigation had been involved in Prosser’s 2011 re-election bid and had stressed the importance of finding donors for him.
Prosser wrote that outside spending to help him was “very valuable to my campaign” but did not rise to a level that would require him to step down from the challenge to the investigation of those groups. That’s because the expenditures were made four years ago, at a time when there was no indication they would appear before the state’s high court.
“The public ultimately decides at the ballot box who is permitted to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Prosser wrote. “The special prosecutor seeks to prevent an elected justice from performing that service unless that unelected special prosecutor wants the elected justice to sit on the case. This is not the way the system works.”
Prosser was part of a 4-2 majority that ruled this month that the probe into Walker’s campaign must be ended and evidence prosecutors have obtained must be destroyed. It came three days after the GOP governor formally announced his bid for the presidency.