This comes as a total surprise...
Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative
Daley, a Rock County circuit court judge, admitted that he would step down because he is a defendant in the recent investigation into Scott Walker and his potentially illegal coordination with campaign donors. Daley is a judge for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the case.
In earlier comments in the Cap Times from March 11 Daley states he does not believe in “dictating recusal” based on campaign donations. He also states that he believes coordination between candidates and outside money groups is illegal, the basis of the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker’s alleged coordination between his campaign and millions of dollars of donations involving Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) and Club for Growth, among others.
Daley’s daughter is also wanted on operating while intoxicated (OWI) charges on an open arrest warrant that dates back to 2008. Daley was aware that his daughter is a fugitive of the law, but chose not to disclose it earlier in the race.
Isthmus
“I can’t participate in that because I am a defendant,” Daley says in a phone interview with Isthmus, declining to comment further. He notes a secrecy order prevents him from discussing whether he has had a change of heart or whether he still believes that Walker’s campaign might have violated election laws and that the investigation should proceed.
Daley’s conflict has flown below the radar during much of this quiet race, although the special prosecutor involved in the secret investigation has called on at least four justices to disqualify themselves. Judicial ethics has emerged as one of the key issues in the race.
The Cap Times
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is now poised to hear three legal challenges of the John Doe probe into allegedly illegal coordination between the campaign of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and outside groups including WMC and Club for Growth.
The John Doe special prosecutor, Francis Schmitz, has asked one or more justices to bow out of these proceedings, a position supported in a recent court filing by six law professors from around the nation. They cited a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a West Virginia justice should have recused himself from a case involving a coal company whose chief executive made nearly $3 million in independent expenditures helping him get elected.
That decision prompted some states to toughen their recusal rules. But in Wisconsin, court conservatives in 2010 instead approved a new rule written by WMC and another interest group that expressly allowed judicial participation in cases involving contributors.
Bradley, who wrote a blistering dissent from that decision, declines to say whether she thinks the Wisconsin justices elected with help from WMC and Club for Growth should recuse themselves from the John Doe cases. But that’s exactly what Bradley herself has done, over a seemingly lesser conflict — because her son practices law with one of the attorneys involved.
As I said in my
earlier diary, it's down to the wire now. We need to let all our Wisconsin friends and family know to get off their asses and
VOTE NO on 2015 JR 2 tomorrow, that's the
Constitutional Amendment aimed at usurping Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and to
VOTE FOR the re-election of
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
With your help Ann Walsh Bradley has, by all indications, left her opponent James Daley in the fundraising dust. At this point in the game I'm not sure if it matters much, but you can still donate to her campaign at this link. More urgently which is a matter of great importance, you can still volunteer to help GOTV! for tomorrows election.
You can find your polling place here. You can still register tomorrow at the polls, and for the last time in Wisconsin electoral history you don't need an ID.
11:22 AM PT: As kindly pointed out by ER Doc in the comments, Daley is not a defendant in the John Doe Investigation itself but a defendant in the John Doe case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming weeks.