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.

Her election followed a bitter campaign, one she said she hoped people learned something from.

“I hope they learned that a positive campaign is a good one to run, especially in the judiciary,” Ziegler said. “Judges need to rise above that and I think the public expects that.

An example of the sort of positive campaign she ran, courtesy of Fact Check.org:

Judge Ziegler for Supreme Court Ad: "The Judge"

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.

Looks like Justice-to-be Annette Ziegler needs to study the state ethics code a bit more.

But we knew that before she was elected, didn't we?

Today, all but one of her soon-to-be colleagues told her the Ethics Board does, indeed, have jurisdiction over judges.