Justice Hagedorn on Invalidating entire Presidential Election: "The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen."

Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn is still right of center, voting most of the time with the majority of conservative Justices. But there's comfort in knowing that he isn't a predictable yes man to the GOP agenda pushed by the other Justices.

Yes, an actual swing vote on one of the most conservatively corrupt State Supreme Court's in the country. 

In the second Court decision rejecting Trump's request to throw out Dane and Milwaukee County voter ballots, Justice Hagedorn offered up the most memorable commentary to date. Nailed it:

"The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen," Hagedorn wrote. Hagedorn expressed alarm at the group's request to throw out nearly 3.3 million votes, calling it a "real stunner."

"We are invited to invalidate the entire presidential election in Wisconsin by declaring it ‘null’ — yes, the whole thing," wrote Hagedorn, who served as chief counsel to Republican Scott Walker when he was governor.

"This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread. The loss of public trust in our constitutional order resulting from the exercise of this kind of judicial power would be incalculable."

  

Why the courts and not the Legislature? In another decision, the current GOP "legal" scam was revealed once again, where elected Republicans are using the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) to get the courts to legislate from the bench many unpopular decisions they know are toxic. Although this case isn't a WILL case, the scheme is the same;

On Friday, in a case brought by Trump in federal court, U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig told an attorney for the president he was asking for "pretty remarkable declaratory relief" by asking to have the fate of Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes decided by the Legislature instead of voters.

He questioned whether the case should even be before him, noting Trump is arguing the Legislature has the power under the U.S. Constitution to decide who to send to the Electoral College.

"If that's the case, why are we doing anything in this court and if that's the appropriate arena for a remedy, why isn't the plaintiff going to the Legislature?" asked Ludwig, a Trump appointee who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September. "I get the argument but I have a very, very hard time seeing how this is justiciable in the federal court," Ludwig said. 

He added that Trump's lawsuit was "really bizarre" because it asks to "remand" the case to the Legislature, noting that remanding a case typically means returning it to a lower court for reconsideration. "I think the term 'remand' might be inartful," Bock responded.

Not-so-grounded-in-law State Supreme Court "legal" decision: "Constitution, Freedom, Liberty!"

When it came to repealing Gov. Evers safe-at-home orders, I was stunned by how similar the State Supreme Court's decision was to the unhinged rantings of my Trump cultist friend in Milwaukee.

The courts decision was like something you would hear at a bar filled with unmasked drunken geniuses spouting "patriotic" interpretations of the Constitution, liberty, and freedom.

Want to know how politically corrupt the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is right now? This AP article exposes what is incredibly obvious to most people. And this is what conservatives call law and order?

Republicans, having worked so hard to make bad policy "constitutional" through activist conservative Justices, weren't shy about shaping law to fit their right-wing outcome:

“Conservatives have been snookered,” former state Rep. Adam Jarchow tweeted within minutes of the court’s ruling Wednesday, in reference to Hagedorn. “We will never learn.” Jarchow, who tweeted that he went to a bar hours after the ruling, said Hagedorn was on “the wrong side of history.”

Justices attack fellow conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn: Apparently the conservative majority of Justices were seeking an overwhelming predetermined outcome. They never expected an honest criticism of their partisan bad decision, based on nothing, that put the entire states population at risk:

Hagedorn wrote: “During my campaign, I said that my job is to say what the law is, not what I think the law should be. I meant what I said” (Saying that the Legislature had no standing to bring the case seeking to overturn Evers’ “safer at home” order). “
“But just as true, the judiciary must never cast aside our laws or the constitution itself in the name of liberty. The rule of law, and therefore the true liberty of the people, is threatened no less by a tyrannical judiciary than by a tyrannical executive or legislature. Today’s decision may or may not be good policy, but it is not grounded in the law.”

Justice Daniel Kelly, who was booted off the court by voters for candidate Jill Karofsky, showed everyone why this bad Scott Walker appointee was never qualified:

“We swore to uphold the Wisconsin Constitution. He’s free to join in anytime he wishes.”

Justice Hagedorn must have hit that exposed sore spot of corruption on the court with this...

“We are a court of law. We are not here to do freewheeling constitutional theory. We are not here to step in and referee every intractable political stalemate. In striking down most of (the order), this court has strayed from its charge and turned this case into something quite different than the case brought to us.”

Supposed liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet summed it up this way:

“A majority of this court falls hook, line and sinker for the legislature's tactic to rewrite a duly enacted statute through litigation rather than legislation. This decision will undoubtedly go down as one of the most blatant examples of judicial activism in this court's history.”

Here's Upfront's Adrienne Pedersen's closing piece:



This hurts, really hurts: While the jury is still out on  Justice Hagedorn's "balls and strikes" attitude, I'm going out on a limb here by agreeing for once with opinion columnist Christian Schneider, even if he blocked me on twitter. This is a thing of beauty: