Fighting for Impartial Justice:
A tool-kit for activists
Graphic by Matt Wuerker for TomPaine.com
Graphic by Peter Berge
Graphic by Matt Wuerker for Tompaine.com
By Roger Bybee
Published by Wisconsin Citizen Action
November, 2002
Table of contents
Introduction
Strategic overview
Step I Settling on Policy: Why only full public funding makes sense
Step II Rounding up high-credibility endorsers
Step III: Building the case
Step IV: Developing your coalition
Step V: Drafting the bill
Step VI: Persuading the public
VIII. Translating support into impact
Step VII. Keeping track of all the action
Appendices
q Letter requesting endorsements
q Endorsement forms
q Fact sheet
q List of endorsers
q Op-eds
q News release on poll released Sept. 10, 2001
q Polling questions
Introduction
T
his “toolkit” is designed to assist state-based activists in winning full public funding for state Supreme Court elections. We think that the increasing clout of special-interest money in state-level Supreme Court elections—a 61% increase in fundraising for such elections between 1998 and 2000 alone—dramatizes the urgency of this reform and the struggle to attain it. The toolkit is based heavily on our experiences seeking to make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to pass and implement the Impartial Justice Bill.
We certainly do not pretend to have all the answers. Most obviously, we do not have a complete success story to tell—yet. (As we prepare this document for publication, our compatriots in North Carolina have just scored a breakthrough, winning passage of full public funding for Supreme Court and Appeals Copurt candidates.) Our efforts in Wisconsin have yielded substantial progress in each of the last two legislative sessions, only to be ultimately blocked at crucial junctures. For example, on the last day of the 1999-2000 session, our Impartial Justice Bill passed the State Senate by a 30-3 vote. But the leadership of the Assembly, at that point fiercely opposed to any substantive campaign reform, simply declined to hold a vote although an overwhelming majority of members were in support, according to two different head-counts conducted by lobbyists.
Determined to overcome this resistance in the 2001-2002 legislative session, we succeeded in building much stronger general support among the Republican majority in the Assembly, and specifically gained several Republicans as sponsors. We eventually won the assent of the speaker for full public funding of Supreme Court elections. Backing among the legal profession, civic groups of all types, and on editorial pages continued to grow, reinforced by a new poll showing 76% support among likely voters.
B
ut this time around, we suddenly encountered intransigent opposition from the Senate majority leader, who insisted that the Impartial Justice Bill would somehow open a new channel for corporate funding of issue ads.
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