{"id":6251,"date":"2023-10-10T20:56:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T20:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6251"},"modified":"2023-10-10T21:29:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T21:29:16","slug":"david-prosser-recommends-against-protasiewicz-impeachment-vos-says-scotus-will-decide-recusal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6251","title":{"rendered":"David Prosser Recommends Against Protasiewicz Impeachment; Vos Says SCOTUS Will Decide Recusal"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/david-prosser\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Wisconsin<\/p>\n

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final word on Janet Protasiewicz\u2019s recusal in the legislative redistricting cases after a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice said he did not believe there was a strong enough case to impeach her at this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustice Protasiewicz should have recused herself. We think the United States Supreme Court precedent compels her recusal, and the United States Supreme Court will have the last word here,\u201d Vos said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustice Protasiewicz is asking to be taken at her word that she will apply the law. Given the Wisconsin Supreme Court is limiting its review of the redistricting case to two questions, legal contiguity and separation of powers, applying the law should be straightforward. The Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed these very questions less than two years ago, and the law remains the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Here\u2019s the letter former Justice David Prosser sent to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos advising lawmakers not move forward with impeachment proceedings against Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the letter obtained by American Oversight as part of a lawsuit pic.twitter.com\/pUFRxpiTX0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) October 10, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whether Protasiewicz should recuse from the maps cases is a different question from impeachment. She has already announced that she will refuse to recuse.<\/p>\n

In his letter to Vos, retired Justice David Prosser wrote that Vos had asked him to address the Assembly\u2019s power and authorities to impeach a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Prosser noted that, during her campaign, Protasiewicz called the electoral maps \u201crigged\u201d and \u201cunfair.\u201d She said they were, \u201crigged, period\u201d and \u201clet\u2019s be clear here \u2013 the maps are rigged, bottom line. Absolutely, positively rigged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosser noted that she also stated she would not participate in a case in which the Democratic Party is a party (although the plaintiffs are, in many cases, members of the Democratic Party, the party is not formally a party in the redistricting cases.)
\nProsser noted that the Wisconsin Constitution gives the Assembly the power to impeach civil officers in Wisconsin who have engaged \u201cin corrupt conduct in office or for crimes and misdemeanors.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that Protasiewicz is \u201cnot accused of any crime or misdemeanor and he did not see any evidence of \u201ccorrupt conduct\u201d after Protasiewic took office.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpeachment is very severe and ought to be very rare,\u201d Prosser wrote. He believed corrupt conduct \u201cis not a term that is open to a mere political grievance.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believed impeachment for \u201ccorrupt conduct,\u201d absent a crime, must be \u201cbased on extremely serious conduct that the public will recognize and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that the impeachment of Donald Trump was \u201chighly partisan and didn\u2019t have legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Prosser, the governor could promptly name a successor \u201cwho might be more problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n

To impeach a justice \u201csolely to delay a case or cases will be viewed as unreasonable partisan politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice Protasiewicz on anything we know now. Impeachment is so serious, severe and rare hat it should not be considered unless the subject has committed a crime, or the subject has committed indisputable \u2018corrupt conduct\u2019 while \u2018in office.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission can review Protasiewicz on her \u201cethical responsibilities in deciding cases.\u201d Ignoring recusal rules \u201cis a serious risk for Justice Protasiewicz.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/david-prosser\/ Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says the U.S. Supreme Court…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":5599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6253,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251\/revisions\/6253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}