In her two bids for the state Supreme Court, JoAnne Kloppenburg has criticized as too weak an ethics rule that says political spending on its own isn’t enough to force a judge off a case.
But as an appeals judge in 2014, Kloppenburg remained on a case involving a group that spent against her in her unsuccessful 2011 race for the high court. Her ruling kept alive an investigation of Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, the Wisconsin Club for Growth and other conservative organizations.
The state Supreme Court later shut down that investigation, finding no one had done anything wrong. Investigators had been looking into whether the GOP governor and the groups had illegally worked together in recall elections.
Kloppenburg is running in the April 5 election against Justice Rebecca Bradley for a 10-year term on the high court.
In a meeting with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors and reporters last week, Kloppenburg said there was no reason for her to step aside from the case because the group had spent money against her, not for her.
“When you have someone running ads for you there is a perception of quid pro quo that doesn’t exist when someone is running ads against you,” she said.
But Rick Esenberg, a lawyer backing Bradley, said Kloppenburg “has some explaining to do” because of her decision to remain on the case while opposing the ethics rule as too weak.