by mal contends

Public financing, education, and aggressive journalism point the way out of the unholy mess the election of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices has become.

So bad is Wisconsin that we are now a poster child for a nationwide problem with electing judges.

Another part of the solution proposed is more aggressive recusal rules, negating the rationale behind buying a Supreme Court seat.

From the Brennan Center for Justice's Justice Under Seige:

Annette Ziegler has reached a settlement with the state Ethics Board in which she admits to having violated ethics rules, and will pay a $17,000 fine. This is an unusual settlement because unilke in most cases, Zeigler had argued that the ethics board had no jurisdiction over judicial ethics, and had asked the Supreme Court to rule, which it did recently. Normally ethics violators just pay up. By agreeing to the settlement, Ziegler avoids the hearing today which would have required her to testify.

However, it's fairly clear that Ziegler still doesn't "get it". The ethics board ruled that although she had violated the ethics rules, she never profited directly from the rulings. This was fairly clear all along, and nobody ever accused her of profiting - that's really not the point of the ethics rules. She had created an impression of impropriety by not recusing herself.  This should have been clear to a judge with the "experience" that Ziegler continually touted during the election.