Political Lowe-down: Supreme Court candidate Pat Roggensack



MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Wisconsin voters head to the polls a week from Tuesday (April 2nd) to elect a Supreme Court justice. In Milwaukee on Monday, March 25th, Justice Pat Roggensack spoke about her campaign for re-election during an appearance at the Milwaukee Press Club. FOX6's Mike Lowe was on the panel of journalists questioning Roggensack.

Marquette professor Ed Fallone is challenging incumbent Justice Pat Roggensack. Roggensack is running for her second 10-year term, but the race so far has not centered on her record.

Roggensack wants to make it clear she is the one up for re-election -- not Justice David Prosser or anyone else on the court.

"The Supreme Court has suffered just a grevious injury as an institution, just awful -- but the court is not up for re-election," Roggensack said.

Roggensack says the physical scuffle between Prosser and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley has damaged the court's credibility.

When asked on Monday, Roggensack detailed the incident at the Milwaukee Press Club.

"Justice Bradley was in one room.  Justice Porsser was in another room. Justice Prosser was not yelling or using bad language. He said something to the Chief Justice like, 'I've totally lost faith in your leadership.'  He was annoyed, but there wasn't yelling or screaming or bad language.  With that, Justice Bradley got out of her chair, came running out of one room, running into another room, with her fist in the air.  She said she was pointing to the door.  It didn't look like that to me, but that's fine.  And she got right in his face, I mean she ran right into his face.  He didn't take one step toward her.  Not one.  He should have turned around and ran. I bet he wished he turned around and ran.  He has no right to touch her, regardless of what she did.  However I believe they're both out of line," Roggensack said.

All but one justice witnessed the altercation.

"If people wanted to pick anybody in the world to witness a crime, you would say the Supreme Court justices would be the perfect people to give an impartial rendition of what happened. If you can't get nine nuns or something like that to do it -- how do you explain the differences between the liberal block and the conservative block and how they saw this incident?" Roggensack said.

The incident hangs over the court like a dark cloud, and there is still no resolution in terms of discipline for either of the justices.

Roggensack says the only explanation for what happened is that both justices' nerves were "totally fried."

Roggensack says restoring credibility is a top goal, but she wants voters to look at her record as a justice who brings a wealth of experience to the bench.

Ed Fallone will be the Press Club's guest on Thurdsay.

Fallone and Roggensack will face off in a final debate in Madison on Tuesday.