^{Chapman’s News & Ideas} Frightening Wisconsin Case Heard Today

People of all shades of political opinion will be watching the results of a federal court hearing in Chicago yesterday that investigates the claims and counter-claims of zealous political prosecutors.

A federal judge, Rudolph Randa, has warned of excesses by a prosecutorial team in Milwaukee that could lead to “the guillotine or gulag” in, of all places, Wisconsin. Hyped up charges of illegality by Gov. Scott Walker are reminiscent of another era in Wisconsin, that of Sen. Joe McCarthy, whose exaggeration of charges of communism in the early 1950s ultimately contributed to a censure from the Senate.

The charges involve supposed coordination of political goals by Gov. Walker and non-partisan political groups as Walker sought election and then fought a recall election. The flimsiness of the charges are a concern unto themselves. But the bullying way prosecutors pursued their quarries–including floodlight raids on homes of Walker supporters–and a star chamber “John Doe” prosecutorial investigation that put a gag order on all knowledgeable persona, have made the picture look a lot like something one would expect from, say, Putin’s Russia. So did the reaction of Wisconsin major media that played the prosecutors’ charges as a kind of criminal conviction.

According to Legal Newsline, “Flashing outrage at the investigators’ pre-dawn raids by armed officers who carried off files and computers, cellphones, and more from the homes of conservative activists, Randa wrote that “attempts to purify the public square lead to … the Guillotine and the Gulag.”

Political prosecutions have failed in Texas and Alaska in recent years. But meanwhile, they ruined the careers of the prosectors’ targets. That may have been the point. At the same time, the careers of the prosecutors were damaged, too, once the full stories were aired.

Walker, whose reforms have offended the most powerful political force in Wisconsin–the unions–is in a close election this fall. One can only hope for quick judicial relief.

Please note, this is another example of what damage has been wrought by the over-regulation of politics and what Mark Helprin has called “the criminalization of policy differences.”

You can email brucechapman@discovery.org