Wisconsin prompted his political career in 2008. He defeated the first Black justice of the state Supreme Court in 2008, capitalizing on an advertisement that raised ethics concerns and allegations of racism.
The Michael Gableman commercial against Louis Butler was compared to the Willie Horton ad from 1988 and an official complaint by the state judicial commissioner. The ad worked as Gableman became the first challenger in over 40 years to defeat a sitting justice, tilting the court’s favor towards conservatives.
Gableman, 55 years old, left the high court in the midst of a 10-year term. He is now taking the same bruising and, according to critics, fact-challenged approach to the investigation into the election. The narrow victory of Biden in Wisconsin in 2020 has withstand multiple reviews, lawsuits, and recounts. There is no evidence that widespread fraud has been proven.
Gableman was sued for his reply to open records requests, and subpoenas during his seven-month investigation. Gableman has been ridiculed for his poor expense records, for sending confusing emails and for making basic errors in his filings. He was also called out for meeting conspiracy theorists.
Both election experts as well as members of both parties dismissed Gableman for claiming that Donald Trump had stolen the election. Gableman was also criticized for his selection of former Trump supporters to join his investigation team.
Bipartisan support letters were written Monday by Wisconsin business leaders to support the state’s troubled election officials. Tom Florsheim signed the letter and said that Gableman harassed and threatened elections officials. This is bad news for both the state and the business environment.
Republican state senator Kathy Bernier, who was a former elections clerk and is retiring next year has called Gableman’s review a “charade” and said that “no one should falsely charge election officials with cheating.” Former New Jersey governor. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, called the Wisconsin investigation part a national disinformation campaign to “keep lies alive for the 2020 election.”
Sachin Chheda (a Democratic strategist who ran Butler’s unsuccessful reelection bid against Gableman 14-years ago) said that he doesn’t believe he has any credibility.
Gableman stated that he is simply searching for the truth. His defenders claim that he has been unfairly criticised for years by political opponents trying to discredit him. Robin Vos, Republican Assembly Speaker, hired Gableman, and gave him a budget of $676,000 to support his investigation.
Gableman did no respond to messages seeking his comment. James Bopp, his attorney, described him as “very conscientious” as well as “very committed to following law as a justice as a person and as a special counsel.”
He considers it an important responsibility. Bopp stated that he would like to restore trust in the Wisconsin election process.
Gableman was hired by Vos, the most powerful Republican in the state, last summer after Trump claimed that Vos tried to prevent an investigation into the election. Gableman’s investigation has been hampered by a number of lawsuits challenging the subpoenas. A Nebraska-based voting machine manufacturer, ES&S refused to comply and called his subpoenas a ‘quintessential fishing expedition.
Subpoenas are also ridiculed for incorrect spelling and names, and asking for data cities don’t possess.
Green Bay’s mayor has filed a complaint against Gableman. He claims he should be fined and have a newspaper ad published to correct misstatements regarding how Gableman, a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan basis, responded to the subpoena.
Gableman is not a stranger to controversy.
Reuben Lee Mitchell was convicted of child molestation and Butler let him out of jail in 2008, according to his campaign ad. This case was one he had handled as a public defense attorney. The ad featured Mitchell and Butler, both Black, in close-up.
It was immediately compared to the TV commercial of a political action committee attacking Michael Dukakis during his 1988 campaign against George H.W. Bush. The ad featured Horton, a Black convict killer who committed the rape following a weekend furlough granted by Massachusetts Governor Dukakis.
“Butler discovered a loophole. In the Gableman ad, the narrator stated that Mitchell continued to molestate another child. The ad was misleading. Butler had won an appeal for Mitchell but the state Supreme Court didn’t overturn Mitchell’s conviction. However, he did not commit another sex crime after being released on parole.
Gableman won, but the Wisconsin Judicial Commission (a nonpartisan, independent agency) filed a complaint against Gableman claiming that he had lied about the ad. Gableman was not present at the Supreme Court, so the court could not decide whether Gableman had violated judicial ethics. However, even conservative justices who sided for Gableman deemed the ad disgusting.
Jim Doyle, the ex-governor who appointed Butler to the court, said that Butler ran a racist, dishonest campaign. It was just, “Let’s find a Black person who committed a terrible crime and tie him to Louis Butler.” Never apologized.”
Gableman decided not to run for reelection, despite the favorable political environment favoring Democrats in 2018. In a year in which Democrats won every state office in the fall, Gableman’s seat was taken by a Liberal candidate in spring.
Gableman remained low-profile after leaving court, but he returned to the rally in Milwaukee in November 2020 with Trump supporters. He claimed that the election was stolen.
Gableman also fueled his critics by telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in October that he did not have a “comprehensive grasp of how elections work”.
He also traveled to Arizona to witness the widely discredited recount. attended a symposium in South Dakota that was headed by Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow. It featured presentations by conspiracy theorists.
Doyle, the Democratic former governor, and former attorney general, stated that he was stunned at the way Gableman conducted the investigation.
Doyle, an attorney who served 12 years as Wisconsin’s top-ranking law enforcement officer, said that “it’s clearly totally amateurish.” “I don’t know what the Republicans think about this, but the way he has conducted it, I would bet they wish he would just disappear and all this would disappear.”
