Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) have shown themselves to be little more than a partisan organization in recent years. Rather than simply representing business interests in the state, they have become hugely partisan and practically the funding arm for right wing candidates. Understandably, this increasingly partisan direction has concerned numerous businesses that did not sign up for such controversy. Partisanship has become one of the obvious faces of WMC, but in a recent story in the Isthmus, we may have seen a sign of something more troubling.

The Isthmus profiled Epic Systems, a Madison based software company that has not only grown to be one of the most important companies in Dane County but a powerhouse in both the state and country. While describing the many ways that Epic Systems has been leading their entire industry, the story also takes a look at the leadership behind Epic Systems and their great successes. No look at the company would be complete without mentioning the founder and CEO, Judy Faulkner. The story goes on to give a professional and rather personal profile of the force behind this giant success story. As part of that discussion, the story points out that Judy Faulkner is very forward thinking and progressive when it comes to public policy and other important issues. This certainly does not fit with the increasingly right wing partisan WMC agenda.

The Capital Times became the first daily newspaper to call for the resignation of Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Annette Ziegler.

We can expect more calls for Ziegler's resignation to follow in the coming months.

Ziegler, elected in the spring of 2007, was hit with denunciations for her conduct as a Washington County judge during her successful campaign that drew little attention from Wisconsin voters.

Ziegler, in violation of Wisconsin judicial conflict of interest rules, presided over dozens of cases in which her family had a financial interest, and failed to disclose to the litigants the conflicts in each case.

Now, Ziegler, awaiting discipline for her conduct on the bench as a county judge, is taking criticism for refusing to recuse herself, as a current Supreme Court justice, from a case that is a high priority of the corporate lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, that spent over $2 million (surpassing the amount spent by Ziegler’s campaign) to elect Ziegler to her current judgeship.

Once again setting a precedent for bad judgment, Annette Ziegler is preparing to hear a case tomorrow in which she has clear conflicts of interest. The case involves the Menasha Corporation. WMC spent over 2 million dollars to get Ms. Ziegler elected to the Supreme Court. They're now cashing in on that investment. WMC has filed an amicus brief on behalf of Menasha Corporation. And the CEO of Menasha Corp. also contributed to Ziegler's election campaign.

Clearly she has a conflict of interest in this campaign and should recuse herself. You can help to suggest this to her by signing the One Wisconsin Now petition. You only have today to do it, so let's hop to it, guys.

As if we didn't know this, according to a recent Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis, the spending in the last Supreme Court election in Wisconsin not only was larger than in any previous election, but was astoundingly more than in any previous election.

Groups that made independent expenditures, which must be disclosed,
spent $99,748 but far more was secretly raised and spent – an estimated
$3 million – by phony issue ad groups. Leading the phony issue ad
groups was the state’s largest business group, the Wisconsin
Manufacturers and Commerce which spent an estimated $2.2 million. WMC
spent most of its money on mostly negative television advertising to
support Ziegler and smear Clifford and the rest on prerecorded calls
and oversized glossy postcards.

Oh yes - those oversized postcards.  By the time the election rolled around I'd pretty much filled up our kitchen wastebasket with them and was considering starting a special Annette Ziegler compost pile out of them.