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OTTAWA NDP Justice critic Randall Garrison and Foreign Affairs critic Heather McPherson are calling on the Liberal government to block the extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab. On Friday, following more than a decade of being denied a fair process and having his rights violated, a French court sentenced Diab to life in prison in his absence.

New Democrats condemn the appalling 1980 terrorist attack on a synagogue in France, and we express our deepest sympathies with the victims and their families who are still seeking justice. They deserve concrete answers, said McPherson. But this entire trial has been a sham. Dr. Diab has lived through a nightmare for the last decade and unjustly spent three years in a French prison under tortuous conditions.

After the Harper government helped France extradite him based on faulty evidence, Dr. Diab was placed in maximum-security prison in 2014 and subject to solitary confinement, all without a trial. After dropping the charges against Diab in 2018 for lack of evidence, France restarted the process and now, the French courts have found him guilty without him being present to defend himself, and theyve given him no opportunity to appeal.

Everyone deserves the right to a fair trial, said Garrison. The horrible conditions Dr. Diab suffered over flimsy and discredited evidence violated his rights and poisoned the process. Given that no justice has been served, New Democrats are demanding the government block any attempts by France to extradite Dr. Diab.

See more here:
NDP calls for Liberals to block extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab - New Democratic Party

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I dont know how to break it to them, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the leading voice for the Democrats progressive wing, may have roughly the same position on a certain issue.

That issue is nuclear energy.

Youngkin, of course, is an enthusiastic cheerleader for nuclear energy. The highlight of the energy plan that he announced in Lynchburg last October was his call to put a small nuclear reactor a new species of nukes that are small and assembled off-site in Southwest Virginia.

Thats not particularly surprising in some ways. Historically, conservatives have always been more keen on nuclear power than liberals. What is surprising, then, are the relatively warm words that Ocasio-Cortez had for nuclear power after a recent visit to the site of the worlds second biggest nuclear disaster. On a recent trip to Japan, she went to the Fukushima nuclear plant, where the reactor was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Its been classified as a Level 7 event the most serious by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The 1986 accident at Chernobyl in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine is the only other Level 7 event, and it released more radioactivity. For comparison purposes, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania is classified at Level 5.

Fukushima might seem an odd place to declare ones support for nuclear energy, and technically Ocasio-Cortez didnt do that. But she did post on Instagram a straightforward account of one of the consequences of the three meltdowns at Fukushima, beyond the hydrogen explosions and the release of enough radioactive xenon-133, iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 that theres still an exclusion zone of about 12 miles around the stricken facility. That consequence is that Japan is burning more fossil fuels.

After the explosion, Japans energy sources went from 30-40 percent nuclear to almost none, Ocasio-Cortez said. The flipside to that is the major drop in nuclear energy production has been made up in increased use of coal and fossil fuels, whose carbon emissions accelerate climate change. For someone concerned about increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere, thats not a good thing.

While Ocasio-Cortez wasnt exactly endorsing nuclear energy, she hasnt ruled it out, either, and certainly seems to be suggesting that nuclear might be a better option than fossil fuels if renewables arent available. Even in 2019, when she and others were introducing the so-called Green New Deal, she specifically said she was leaving the door open to nuclear energy so that we can have that conversation. Since then, others on the left have been rethinking their skepticism of nuclear energy; if the goal is to create a carbon-free electrical grid, then maybe nuclear energy is the way to get there?

Bill Gates has become a vocal crusader about the dangers of climate change, authoring a book last year titled How To Avoid a Climate Disaster. One of his big solutions: nuclear power. Newsweek recently examined the changing politics in a piece entitled The Lefts Changing Position on Nuclear Energy. The Atlantic, whose readers probably skew left of center, examined the same thing in a recent story of its own. Although only a handful of the mainline environmental organizations are openly nuclear inclusive (for example, the Nature Conservancy), many quietly accept that nuclear power can be part of the climate solution, and perhaps a necessary part, the magazine writes.

Indeed, earlier this month, a trio of senators introduced a bill to promote new nuclear technologies one of them was Republican Shelly Capito of West Virginia but the other two were Democrats, Tom Carper of Delaware and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The longer list of co-sponsors was also bipartisan, as well, bringing together an unlikely alliance of Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. Of the entire list of 10 sponsors and co-sponsors, they are equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. This statement from Booker rated by Progressive Punch as 97.62 liberal, making him more liberal than even Bernie Sanders is typical of how some on the left are starting to see nuclear energy: Advanced nuclear energy has a critical role to play as we race against the clock to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.

The nations most powerful advocate for nuclear power is a Democrat: President Joe Biden. Thats not how hes usually identified, but that just goes to show how we as a society often misunderstand things. The Biden administration has quietly championed nuclear energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions. The 2021 infrastructure bill included at least $6 billion to promote nuclear energy. Last fall, the Department of Energy released a report on converting coal-fired plants to nuclear plants. In early March, the administration announced $1.2 billion in aid to extend the life of aging nuclear plants. John Kerry, now a special presidential envoy for climate issues, has been encouraging eastern European countries which have relied heavily on coal to convert those coal plants to nuclear plants, specifically the type of small modular reactors that Youngkin now wants to see in Southwest Virginia. Nuclear energy, including small modular reactors, represent a critical tool in the fight against climate change, and can also enhance energy security and boost economic prosperity, Kerry has declared.This may seem odd in the context of American politics, but not globally. In Canada, the governing Liberal Party is also investing in nuclear power. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government is investing $708 million (thats counted in our greenbacks, not their loonies) in the same type of small modular reactors that Youngkin wants.

One countervailing trend: Germanys left-of-center government shut down its last three nuclear plans over the weekend and is now out of the nuclear energy business. At one point, Germany had 36 nuclear reactors and generated one-quarter of its energy from them. It plans to replace that with renewables but also more gas and coal, so Ocasio-Cortezs point remains: The more a country relies on nuclear power, the less it will burn fossil fuels, at least for now. Those who pushed Germany to shut down nuclear insist this increased reliance on coal will be a temporary thing.

One traditional argument against nuclear energy is that it creates radioactive waste that doesnt go away anytime soon. The half-life of plutonium-239 is a mere 24,110 years, meaning that any plutonium-239 created now will be half gone in 24,110 years. And yet heres a curiosity: Even after its been used, spent nuclear fuel still retains more than 90% of its energy potential, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Youngkin has suggested that one way to get around the radioactive waste problem is simply to recycle it. That has horrified some nuclear critics recycling nuclear waste might also open ways for some of it to be siphoned off for illicit purposes, such as making nuclear weapons, they warn. However, after her trip to Fukushima, Ocasio-Cortez spoke somewhat warmly about how France recycles radioactive waste, sayingthis is increasing the efficiency of their systems and reducing the overall amount of radioactive waste to deal with. Newsweek quoted a somewhat stunned nuclear energy consultant who says, Recycling is a much more tricky issue than she makes it out to be, which is another sign for me. If shes willing to make a good/bad, very simplistic determination on fuel recycling, and she decides its good, that is a stance that would have been seen as perhaps radically pro-nuclear in previous eras.

The liberals who are for nuclear power may not be for it for the same reason that conservatives are. Pro-nuclear liberals see it as a way to reduce carbon emissions (and perhaps take up less land than wind and solar, which are very land-intensive). Pro-nuclear conservatives, such as Youngkin, are distrustful that renewables can carry the entire load of our energy needs; they like the security of a plant thats running night and day, no matter the weather. And yet, even though theyve traveled different roads, some politicians from both sides are winding up in the same place.

The point is, the politics of nuclear energy are changing. So are the dynamics of the industry. The Atlantic article made the case that the biggest obstacle to the deployment of nuclear energy is no longer opposition on the left its the nuclear industry itself, which it depicted as being old and slow. Within the nuclear industry, though, is a new generation of innovators, and theyre the ones who are working on those SMRs. The newcomers have engineering backgrounds but few if any ties to traditional nuclear utilities, The Atlantic writes. They think that climate change is a dire problem and that time is short. They see themselves as innovators, in the same way that Apple upended the cellphone business or Tesla is disrupting the auto industry. This is the context that Virginia is now venturing into. Here, its Republicans many of them from coal country who are pushing these small modular reactors, but globally, its climate alarmists who are often their advocates (just not all climate alarmists, mind you).

Politics often produces odd bedfellows; heres yet another unusual pairing.

Over the course of this week, Im going to be devoting my columns to looking at the changing nature of the nuclear industry and how that relates to Youngkins quest to locate a small reactor in Southwest Virginia. Spoiler alert: None of this is designed to persuade people one way or another. Those who believe that its too dangerous to be splitting atoms, or believe that a nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia amounts to making the region a sacrifice zone, will not find an argument to think otherwise. Likewise, those who are convinced that nuclear power is safe, reliable and necessary will not find an argument to dispute their confidence. I am not a scientist and bring no scientific expertise to such discussions. (Others may prefer the comfort of ideology alone to support their positions, pro or con.) I do, though, consider myself a pretty fair analyst of politics and the economy, so thats where my focus will be.

In the coming days unless breaking news such as a zombie outbreak interrupts the festivities I will look at these issues: Does Virginia in general and Southwest Virginia in particular have the workforce to support a larger nuclear industry? Why does the U.S. Department of Energy believe that coal plants would make good sites for nuclear facilities? And, finally, what are some of the practical considerations that should be considered about the prospect of mining uranium in Pittsylvania County?

Stay tuned.

Tomorrow: Do we have the workforce to support expansion of nuclear power?

Related

Go here to read the rest:
Nuclear energy is bringing some liberals and some conservatives together - Cardinal News

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during an announcement at the offices of telecommunications firm Ericsson Canada in Kanata, Ont., on April 17.LARS HAGBERG/Reuters

As devotees of Looney Tunes are well aware, there always comes a moment when Wile E. Coyote, suspended in mid-air above a yawning canyon, finally looks down and realizes his predicament. Gravity does its thing, and a long and nasty fall ensues.

In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the Liberals positively gushed about the wonders of low interest rates that allowed the government to spend without a care for the resulting debt burden. But fiscal gravity is catching up to this government, in the form of ludicrously high wage demands from public service unions and a threatened general strike that could commence as soon as midnight on Tuesday.

Inflation is at the heart of the dispute, with unions pushing to (at a minimum) shield their members from the post-pandemic surge in the cost of living. Government negotiators, quite sensibly, are aiming for much more modest raises, which would counter some but not all of the impact of inflation since 2020.

External factors, including crimped global supply chains and Russias invasion of Ukraine, have helped fuel price increases. But there can be no doubt that the Liberals spending spree, which continued even after the economic emergency of the pandemic dissipated, added fuel to the fire.

Inflation would have been and would now be lower if the government had exercised even modest prudence and reined in its spending once the economic crisis had passed. But as Canadians know all too well, the governments fiscal response to inflation has been to spend even more.

Its not terribly surprising that public sector unions would want to prevent their members paycheques from shrinking. Even so, the size of the demands are eye-popping: the workers at the Canada Revenue Agency are pushing for wage increases of nearly 33 per cent over three years. The rest of the civil service has less astronomical demands, but those proposals would still increase pay significantly even before non-wage factors were costed in.

It would be an enormous mistake for the government to acquiesce.

For one thing, an outsized wage settlement for the federal civil service will serve as a benchmark for other negotiations, most obviously for provincial public sector unions. Private sector unions, too, will look to the contracts Ottawas signs as a lodestone.

If other unions attempt to keep pace with a generous federal settlement, inflationary pressures could be rekindled and keep interest rates higher for longer.

Of course, for most Canadians, a 33-per-cent raise is simply a fantasy. Thats another important reason that Ottawa needs to stick to its position for below-inflation wage increases: it would be a symbol of solidarity with Canadian families struggling to balance their budgets.

Speaking of budgets, a capitulation to union wage demands would blow a hole in Ottawas. Even without such added costs, the Liberals are already projecting deficits for the next five years, with tens of billions of dollars in added spending just this year.

In last falls economic update, the government forecast cumulative deficits of $69.4-billion for the current fiscal year and the next four, through to fiscal 2028. But in last months budget, those cumulative deficits nearly doubled, to $131.7-billion. The Liberals had forecast a surplus of $4.5-billion in fiscal 2028; now they forecast a $14-billion deficit.

Even that depends on the government holding its operating expenses flat for the next four years, through to fiscal 2028. The Liberals devotion to that goal is tenuous: If contract negotiations result in costs above the budgets assumptions, those extra dollars will just be added to the deficit.

That insouciance does not inspire confidence, nor much hope that the Liberals will choose this moment to finally summon the spine for real spending restraint.

Public sector unions could be forgiven for thinking that the Liberals will remain invertebrate. After all, this government increased the size of the core federal bureaucracy by a third, and then hired even more bodies when massive snafus emerged for passports and other critical services.

In any case, the Trudeau government can no longer simply look away from the reality that its irresponsible fiscal choices are pushing Canadas finances onto increasingly precarious footing. As Wile E. Coyote knows, its a long, painful fall once gravity takes hold.

Read the original:
Globe editorial: Fiscal gravity catches up to the Liberals - The Globe and Mail

On March 28, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled the 2023 federal budget, hailing it as a historic opportunity. The budget was widely anticipated to include major green energy incentives in response to President Joe Bidens Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It delivered on this front, providing Can$20.9 billion over six years bundled in a series of tax credits for clean electricity, clean hydrogen, and clean technology manufacturing. However, the overall budget is a mixed bag, with its climate initiatives serving as a proxy for other half measures contained therein. On matters of importance for working people such as housing and public sector wages the budget appears to be a total failure.

Environmentalist organizations, for starters, were ambivalent about the climate plans outlined in the budget. Keith Stewart, energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, said the group welcomes the unprecedented federal investments in greening the grid, which will be critical as we phase out fossil fuels by replacing them with electricity from renewable energy sources. However, he cautioned, the budget outlines continued plans to subsidize oil and gas companies, sending mixed messages. No money in the world could convince oil companies to become good actors on climate change, so it would be far more effective to simply regulate their emissions and invest scarce public funds into accelerating investments in efficiency and electrification, Stewart added.

Equiterre, the environmentalist NGO where Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault worked before he entered politics, criticized the budgets dependence on unproven carbon and storage technology, which allows oil and gas companies to continue production unabated. Equiterres director of government relations Marc-Andr Viau said:

This budget is in line with the governments environmental vision, which aims to achieve its environmental objectives through a combination of clean and less clean technologies. Some announced measures such as the decarbonization of electricity networks are promising, but some, such as the significant financing of carbon capture and storage, are causing perplexity.

Furthermore, the budget doesnt contain any investments in public transit. The clean transportation program manager for Environmental Defence Canada, Nate Wallace, warned that a lack of funding in emissions-reducing public transit will lead to a death spiral of service cuts and fare increases that will push people into their cars. Wallace expressed hope that the governments coming update on permanent transit funding, expected later this year, will address funding shortfalls, but noted that these investments are needed immediately. He did, however, applaud the federal governments investment in zero-emission vehicle manufacturing as a measured response to the IRA.

Another major component of the budget is $13 billion for the expansion of a means-tested dental-care program for those who make less than $90,000, which was a key piece of the federal Liberals agreement with the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP). The NDP committed to support the Liberal minority government until 2025 in exchange for certain concessions under the agreement.

In 2022, the federal government created a temporary dental benefit cash payment for children under twelve, in families under the income threshold, which will be replaced next year with a government insurance program. This year, eligibility will expand to people under eighteen, seniors, and people with disabilities who fall below the income threshold and lack private insurance. By 2025, everyone in households earning less than $90,000 will become eligible.

To address rising inflation, the budget includes a onetime grocery rebate on the federal Goods and Services Tax, which will provide families with two children up to $467, seniors $225, and single people $234 to help them pay for groceries. This years average monthly grocery bill, for a family of four, is expected to be $1,357. The NDP has inexplicably touted this meager spending which Freeland described as narrowly focused and fiscally responsible as a win for affordability.

Pharmacare, another important Liberal concession for the NDPs support, remains absent from the budget. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh acknowledges that this wont come to fruition before the expiration of their deal, but continues to prop up the Liberal government nonetheless. Evidently, Singh believes that there is merit in focusing on the affordability, climate, and dental-care half measures, in spite of the fact that the Liberals were likely to implement these items anyways. It is likely that the Liberals will outline a framework for implementing a pharmacare system just in time for the next election. This will maintain the partys perennial promise of pharmacare, a pledge theyve been making for the past quarter century.

The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) lambasted the budget for not including any measures to ease the housing affordability crisis. Its clear that the federal government does not see the scale and urgency of these crises, and have offered no solutions, said CAEH president and CEO Tim Richter. For thousands of Canadians who will not be able to pay their rent this week, they will find no relief or meaningful support in this budget. Too many others will be projected unnecessarily into the life-threatening experience of homelessness.

The only housing commitment in the budget is a $4 billion investment in an Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy. While the measure is very much needed to address the disproportionate number of homeless indigenous people, it is insufficient. Its also being delivered by the Canada Housing and Mortgage Company, rather than National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. This decision calls to mind antecedent colonial impositions that have always been disguised as charity.

The lack of urgency on the housing file makes sense when you realize that 38 percent of parliamentarians own real estate, meaning that they stand to profit from housing scarcity, according to disclosure records compiled by Davide Mastracci at Passage. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland co-owns two rental properties on Aquinas Street in London, UK, with her husband, New York Times reporter Graham Bowley, from which they draw income. She also owns a residential property in Kyiv and farmland in her hometown of Peace River, Alberta.

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen owns a rental property in Ottawa, from which he draws income. Its entirely unsurprising that those who benefit from the housing affordability crisis fail to appreciate its urgency.

Echoing Biden, Chapter Three of the Canadian budget states that in order for companies to take full advantage of green energy subsidies, they will have to guarantee that wages paid are at the prevailing level. However, as we saw with the IRA, the devil is in the details. In the first six months since the US legislation passed, most of its $50 billion in investments have gone to companies in states that suppress unionization with right-to-work laws, which allow individual workers to opt out of unionization. The Canadian budget promises that the government will introduce anti-scab legislation by the end of the year, but this leaves a large window for employers to hire scabs.

Buried in Chapter Six of the budget, however, is a 3 percent across-the-board cut to the public sector to be implemented over four years for $7 billion in savings, followed by $2.4 billion in cuts annually. Crown corporations, which are owned by the state, are instructed to make comparable spending reductions beginning next year. Fred ORordian, head of tax policy at Ernst & Young, a firm notoriously amenable to reducing the size of government, described these measures as a pretty blunt instrument, which fails to distinguish between programs that are already running efficiently and effectively and those that arent, and it doesnt identify programs that are no longer necessary.

The government insists that these cuts cannot come at the expense of direct benefits and service delivery to Canadians [emphasis added], meaning theyre going to come at the expense of those who deliver the benefits and services, whether through job cuts or wage freezes. Either way, an increasingly overworked public service will be forced to do the same job with fewer resources. As Chris Aylward, the head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents federal public sector workers, puts it, This budget screams austerity.

More than one hundred thousand PSAC members have voted in favor of entering a legal strike position. If they do go on strike, there wont yet be any legislation in place to prevent the government from hiring scabs. One might understand the sweeping public sector cuts outlined in the budget, in this context, as a warning to public sector employees that if they want to retain their jobs, they should limit their demands at the bargaining table.

All in all, the Liberals latest budget is in keeping with the partys time-honored modus operandi: pay lip service to the needs of regular people and then pass legislation that keeps the boss class happy. The Liberals are nothing if not consistent.

See the article here:
Canada's New Budget Is a Typical Liberal Road Map for Failing the Working Class - Jacobin magazine

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The soon-to-be four member majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Jill Karofsky, Rebecca Dallet, newly elected Janet Protasiewicz and Ann Walsh Bradley. Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner.

On the day after Wisconsins nasty and expensive state Supreme Court election, the lead sentence of theWisconsin State Journals front page election storyproclaimed: Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, giving liberals a court majority for the first time in 15 years, boosting Democrats bid to toss out Wisconsins near-complete abortion ban and promising to dramatically reshape politics in the battleground state.

Wisconsin Public Radio, meanwhile, said this in itselection-nightreport: Democrats have scored a major off-year election victory in Wisconsin, winning the states open supreme court seat and flipping control of the court to liberals for the first time in 15 years.

Both articles contain a contention that is highly questionable if not objectively false.

Protasiewicz did clobber Kelly by an unheard-of-for-Wisconsin 11-point margin. But in asserting that liberals controlled the Wisconsin Supreme Court as recently as 15 years ago, these news outlets were just repeating a shorthand description that became common during the election.

Heres the headline and subhead of an ABC Newsstorypublished on the morning of Feb. 19, the day of the primary election that narrowed the field to Kelly and Protasiewicz:

Democrats see a prime chance to take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court

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Democrats, who havent had a majority in 15 years, see concerns over abortion access and voting rights as key opportunities to take back control.

And two days before the election, NPRreported, An election on Tuesday could change the political trajectory of Wisconsin, a perennial swing state, by flipping the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years.

Since the election, the idea that Wisconsin liberals have just gained a court majority for the first time in 15 years has continued to percolate.

HeresThe Capital Timesin the lead sentence of apiecepublished April 6: As Wisconsins state Supreme Court shifts toward its first liberal majority in 15 years, a liberal law firm plans to challenge the states voting maps based on the assertion that partisan gerrymandering violates the Wisconsin Constitution.

And on April 13, theState Journalrepublishedan editorial in theKenosha Newsthat said thismarks the first time the court will have a liberal bent in 15 years.

In fact, Wisconsin did not have what could be safely described as a liberal majority 15 years ago and quite possibly ever if you count the many years in which liberal and conservative were not terms commonly applied to Supreme Court justices and contenders.

From 2004 to 2008, the court had three liberal justices, three conservatives, and one justice, Patrick Crooks, who was a swing vote. Yet while Crooks wasappointedto a circuit court judgeship in Brown County by Wisconsin Gov. MartinSchreiber, a Democrat, he ran for election to the Supreme Court in 1995 as a conservative, losing in the general election to Ann Walsh Bradley. His campaign was run by Scott Jensen, a former Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly who would later end up being convicted of ethics violations.

Crooks was elected to the court the following year, beating Ralph Adam Fine, and was seen as a reliable conservative for much of his tenure, which ended when he died while still in office in 2015, after announcing that he would not seek reelection the following year. He was replaced by conservative Rebecca Bradley,appointedby Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and then elected to a full ten-year term in 2016.

In 2004, Crooks joined court liberals in a series of decisions seen as affecting businesses, drawing ahysterical reactionfrom the states big business lobby, which claimed thatAmericas personal injury lawyers are racing to Wisconsin to take advantage of these rulings, which the group said in an ad send a clear signal to every CEO and top executive in the U.S. that Wisconsin will be a risky state in which to operate. The ad showed a billboard that proclaimed, Hello, Trial Lawyers! Good-bye Jobs!

Yet despite this heated reaction, Crooks was still considered enough of a conservative thatWMCsat back and let him get reelected without challenge in 2006.

Its true that some people called him a liberal but that is far from firmly or clearly established. From hisWikipedia entry: Crooks generally joined the conservative majoritys opinions, especially in criminal matters, but joined the liberal minoritys dissents on certain constitutional issues and matters of court administration. In a 2011Milwaukee Magazinearticleentitled Crooks Is Not a Liberal, journalist Bruce Murphy wrote:

Yes, he isconsidereda liberal and is typically described that way in the media, but in fact, hes a centrist who tends to lean right. Murphy called the identification of Crooks as a liberal the medias error.

Wisconsin Supreme Court watcher Alan Ball, a history professor at Marquette, has backed this up with numbers. Inananalysispublished a day after the election, he calculated that between 2004 and 2008, when Crooks was a critical swing vote, he sided with the three liberals in 44% of non-unanimous decisions (Table 1)considerably more often than the next closest fourth man, Justice David Prosser, who joined the three liberals in only 11% of non-unanimous decisions during this period.

But still, Ball found, Crooks voted with the conservatives slightly moreoften than with the liberals. Therefore, he wrote, it seems a stretch to describe the supreme court as liberal during [this] period.

So how long has it been that liberals comprised a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court?

Thecourt has never had a clear liberal majority in the decades that Ive covered it, Ball told me in an email last fall. In the 21stcentury there have been years when it has leaned conservative when there have been three liberals (Abrahamson, AW Bradley, and Butler, for example, or, currently, AW Bradley, Dallet, and Karofsky) and periods when it has been heavily conservative most recently, the Gableman and Kelly years.

Thus, if a liberal prevails in next springs election, the court will be clearly liberal for the first time in living memory, Ball wrote. Given these stakes, I imagine that the upcoming race will completely shatter all spending records for judicial elections in Wisconsin.

He got that right. Theestimated$50 million that was sunk into the states Supreme Court race on behalf of the two candidates, in nearly equal measure, is five times theprevious recordfor a Wisconsin Supreme Court race and more than three times therecordfor a judicial race anywhere in the United States.

WhenProtasiewicz is sworn in this August, liberals will comprise a Wisconsin Supreme Court majority for the first time in at least four decades.

Just ask liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the courts longest-tenured member.

Ive been on the court for twenty-eight years, and Ive never served with what is labeled a liberal majority, one that sees the role of government and democracy the way that I do, Bradley told journalist Dan Kaufman in anarticlepublished April 12 inThe New Yorker.

In other words, despite all the advertising and national media attention, the issue of control of the court by liberals is an even bigger deal than what youve often been told.

Bill Lueders former editor of The Progressive magazine and current editor-at-large, is a Wisconsin writer who lives in Madison.He also serves as the elected president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a statewide group that works to protect public access to government meetings and records.

Originally posted here:
Op Ed: This Is First Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court In Living Memory - Urban Milwaukee