Today, the voters of Wisconsin go to the polls in what may be the single most expensive and important judicial race in modern history. Both parties are spending millions with the balance of the state Supreme Court in the balance. If liberal Susan Crawford wins, the expectation is that she will vote with the Democratic majority to approve a gerrymandering of congressional districts to guarantee the loss of two Republicans and possibly flip control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats.
The raw political pitch in the election is disturbing. It assumes that both candidates will blindly support the objectives of their respective parties. The real reason to cast a vote today should be on judicial ideology. Ironically, the United States Supreme Court made that plain in an important Wisconsin case argued just the day before the state election.
The case is Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission.
In the decision below, the Democratic-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Catholic Charities could not benefit from a religious exemption to the state’s unemployment tax because its charitable work was not sufficiently religious.
Catholic Charities is one of the world’s oldest and most respected charities. However, the church believes that it has a duty to help people of every faith who are in need. Thus, the church does not proselytize in offering such aid and services.
A state labor commission ruled that the charity’s lack of such religious expression and prayer makes it secular, even if it has religious motivations.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed and ruled that the charity is not operated primarily for religious purposes because it does not “attempt to imbue” beneficiaries “with the Catholic faith nor supply any religious materials to program participants or employees.” In other words, the fact that Catholic Charities helps everyone and does not proselytize worked against it. The Wisconsin Supreme Court essentially argued that it needs to pray more to offer such charity as a church.
It is a disturbing ruling that would allow the state to choose between religions in weighing their relative manifestations of faith.
Even liberal justices cried foul over the standard. Justice Elena Kagan suggested it was “pretty fundamental that we don’t treat some religions better than others. And we certainly don’t do it based on the content of the religious doctrine that those religions preach.”
Kagan noted, “Some religions proselytize. Other religions don’t. Why are we treating some religions better than others based on that element of religious doctrine?” She noted that the standard “basically puts the state on the side of some religions with some doctrine versus other religions with a different doctrine.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was asking the wrong questions about what it means to be an organization “operated primarily for religious purposes.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch virtually mocked the standard of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, asking if Catholic Charities have to require the people receiving their services to “repent.” He then asked: “is mandatory church attendance versus optional church attendance, that’s the line?”
Gorsuch then delivered the haymaker: “Isn’t it a fundamental premise of our First Amendment that the state shouldn’t be picking and choosing between religions, between certain evangelical sects, and Judaism and Catholicism on the other, for example?”
The case shows that there are far more important issues dividing these candidates on judicial philosophy that should drive this election. I am not a fan of state elected judges and justices precisely because of the raw political element to these contests. The Catholic Charities case shows that the Wisconsin Supreme Court is divided along more than just a party line.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
P.S.: Whoever wins, the majority should adopt a new seal for the Court. The current seal above is dreadful.
I’ve observed (over my lifetime) the slow closure of one of the larger landholders in the US – meaning the Catholic church with its charities, e.g., schools, Orphanages, adoption, agencies, etc., and the subsequent selling off of properties from the 1960s on.
Coincidentally, the US government seems to have picked up where The church left off.
Let’s review; Bibles removed from schools in the 1960s, & resulting degradation of religious participation = the rise of ‘secular charity’ via government programs (as shown during the Johnson administration) seems to be at the foundation of problems we see now. I’ve seen no mention of this as a violation of separation of church and state.
If this country exchanges Constitutional law for some version of ‘a democracy’, the judicial system is always the first line of defence — or attack, depending on your view.
@C
When it’s patently partisan and dubiously legal – that no longer represents a point of view, it represents a one-sided agenda. We have laws and standards for a system of governance. There is no other word for modern liberal judges but, ‘activist’, and the bench of implied impartiality is not the place for it, period. RBG was positively neutral compared to the charlatans.
Turley says the court race should not be about politics and then spends the rest of the column bashing the court for not following his politics.
If that is what you got out of the good professor’s column, you are an idiot. Seems the US SC would agree.
Franke; once again cosplaying in hopes of replacing one of our resident Three Democrat Stooges. Franke think’s Gigi’s position is vulnerable!
Let me know when a Democrat gets jailed for their crimes like the 1000’s of Republicans that HAVE BEEN JAILED and their LIVES destroyed!
How many soldiers and workers were FIRED for not getting the USELESS DANGEROUS COVID Vax?
Seek psychiatric help.
Jon We are Fighting people who can’t ADMIT A GIRL IS A GIRL and BOY A BOY!
They MAKE Trillions STEALING!
This is ABOUT PURE GREED and HATRED!
Jon do you understand…Democrats are FASCISTS in the pure form!
Another bizarre remark.
And what exactly is “in the pure form”?
Jon you are such an idealist!
In litigation judges evaluate, hear arguments and make decisions on the evidence presented. They have to make determinations on relevance and admissibility during the course of preliminary motions and up to and including trial. They are limited to the rules of evidence and the interpretations of counsel before them. It goes without saying that controlling procedure as well as substantive matters is a requirement. As judges, they are educated in the Judicial codes of conduct and even in matters of communication skills. They may also receive training in specialized areas such as criminal procedure.
But the goal is to maintain objectivity within the limits of the law by fairly evaluating the evidence before them and making logically sound judgments based on that legally evaluated evidence. This applies all the way from administrative law to the appellate levels. It is important to be watchful when evaluating judges in that their formulated judgments are not always a matter of personal preference but rather is directed by the evidence before them. People offering opinions about judges must be sure to ask themselves questions about what judges actually do and whether or not their own political assessments cast judges in an unfair light.
M. Wiser wrote:As judges, they are educated in the Judicial codes of conduct and even in matters of communication skills… People offering opinions about judges must be sure to ask themselves questions about what judges actually do and whether or not their own political assessments cast judges in an unfair light.
Just sail in on your warship with your false flag flying? As you cosplay on being an expert at this, you’re surely aware of the Code of Professional Conduct for the Washington DC Bar Association. And perhaps more specifically concerning members of that bar association who are also federal judges, the ethical canons for federal judges: The Code of Conduct for United States Judges.
Judge Boasberg of 2016 FISA infamy, Kevin Klinesmith infamy, and once again celebrated by your fellow Democrats for claiming the Executive Branch must seek the permission of him as a basement level District Judge to deport criminal illegal aliens. Judge Boasberg has both a wife merching out working for Democrat opposition to Trump’s administration, and more specifically a daughter merching out a foundation which has been receiving Democrat federal benefits, being paid to obstruct and prevent Illegal Aliens being deported.
Both the Washington DC Bar Association AND The Code of Conduct for United States Judges have sections that state that Boasberg MUST recuse himself when choosing to hear cases judge-shopped to him concerning Illegal Aliens. Mandatory recusal due to the political business interests of not just one of them, but both of them.
Boasberg has repeatedly been asked to recuse himself by the Trump administration. Boasberg repeatedly refuses to do that.
Since you’ve lectured on whether a political assessment either for or against a judge might be done in an unfair light… Give us you opinion on whether Boasberg is complying with the prohibitions set out for him by both his Bar Association and the Canons of Conduct for federal judges?
Do you claim he’s an honest, principled judge?
Or a blatantly corrupt lawless judge – just as he was back in 2016 when he allowed Obama to turn his FISA courts into Democrat perjury factories?
Inquiring honest Democrat minds want to know…
In the probable likelihood you are not aware of and have never read either of the codes of conduct governing a Washington DC lawyer and federal judge like Boasberg, here’s the links so you can do that before delivering your opinion:
The Code of Conduct for United States Judges
https://www.uscourts.gov/administration-policies/judiciary-policies/ethics-policies/code-conduct-united-states-judges
DC Bar Association Rules of Professional Conduct
https://www.dcbar.org/for-lawyers/legal-ethics/rules-of-professional-conduct
I gave a presentation once on what judges (here, ALJ’s) do to a group before a group of congressional staffers. They were actually stunned when it was all spelled out.
The agency never let me give another presentation
The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Should Turn on Principle Not Politics
And Democrat lawyers and overwhelmingly majority Democrat bar associations – like your DC District Bar Association and it’s members – should also work and perform their functions within the restrictions of the Constitution and their professional code of conduct. But instead Professor Turley, they nakedly broadcast and run for election on promises of delivering one form of lawfare or another
How many of the state Attorney Generals and Prosecutors who prosecuted President Trump were elected on a vow that if elected, they would get Trump for something?
Now we have the Democrat running in this Wisconsin race flat out promising that, if elected, she will be the vote that will allow a majority Wisconsin Supreme Court to gerrymander the state in a way that will eliminate two Republican House members.
Professor Turley, academic theorizing about the issue doesn’t address the problem: this is political corruption.
And almost without exception, the cause is your fellow Democrat lawyers in these positions. Particularly those you rub shoulders with in the Washington DC Bar Association.
Like Boasberg and his prior record since 2016 along with his refusal to recuse himself as his wife and daughter merch out his court room – in violation of both your Bar Association’s code of conduct AND the canons of conduct for federal judges.
It’s right there staring you in the face, seated next to you in your Bar Association, Professor Turley. And you treat it as though it is The Thing That Cannot Be Named in one of your columns.
This article fails to point out that the decision in the Wisconsin Supreme Court was 4-3, apparently split on partisan lines (though I’m not entirely sure of that). Given the way things appear in the US Supreme Court on this, the partisanship in Wisconsin seems extreme, especially on the left. Even the left-leaning Justices are objecting to what their Wisconsin comrades did. That can’t but affect how voters should assess the candidates.
“Should turn on principle, not politics.” Agrred! But leftists have demonstrated they espouse the reverse; therefore, the prudent voter will vote Republican, in order that justice and the rule of law will have a fighting chance in the judiciary.
We knew this was going on but it’s coming to the light. They are finally making the ties to Soros. Thank you God.
This is the smoking gun Trump warned us about.
This is the rigged system. {see voting machines/manufactures} {w/o a change the pendulum will swing baQ}
This is the enemy within. {judiciary, comi-CEO’s, comi-senators/congressmen}
We demand investigations. {sooner the better}
Indictments. And accountability. MAGAA1st still awaits the 1st arrests of the BIG fish, with decades of proof
The time to be silent is OVER. Get the fuQ off the fence, MAGAA1st or communism
Patriots, RISE UP.
Here’s why….
Secret Judicial Society Exposed-Tied to DOJ, Soros, and Anti-Trump Rulings
On March 21st, 2025, as President Donald J. Trump fights to restore justice, we now uncover a hidden alliance of judges, DOJ officials, and globalist elites operating behind the scenes to destroy him— and YOU.
The American Inns of Court—an invite-only legal club-has been meeting in secret, rigging the system from inside. No transparency. No public oversight.
This isn’t a “professional group” — it’s a shadow government within our courts.
At the center? The Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court in
Washington, D.C. Its members include:
– Judge James Boasberg
(President)
– Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
(VP)
– Judge Amit Mehta (Host of secret meetings)
– Judge Beryl Howell
– Chief Justice John Roberts (Honorary member of UK’s Middle
Temple)
Every name tied to Trump-hating decisions. Every name tied to backroom deals.
On Feb 15th, 2024, over 150 lawyers and federal officials attended a hidden meeting inside Judge Mehta’s courtroom. DOJ insiders like Michael Horowitz and Seth Eichenholtz showed up. Why?
What business does the DOJ have colluding with anti-Trump judges?
This is a direct violation of separation of powers. It’s not just unethical. It’s treasonous.
They even reward each other for prosecuting Trump supporters.
Boasberg nominated Howell for an award because of her brutal January 6th rulings. That’s not professionalism. That’s political warfare.
And the rot goes deeper: Chief
Justice Roberts holds a title in the Middle Temple-a British legal guild backed by George Soros. The same Soros funding radical prosecutors across the U.S. The same Soros who wants Trump and MAGA destroyed.
They’ve gone underground.
Scrubbing websites. Holding invite-only galas. Giving awards.
Plotting rulings. And most damning
—no transcripts, no cameras, no sunlight.
You cannot assemble a court by competitive partisan elections! This should be obvious to everyone! Everything must be determined by unanimous agreement, EVERYTHING! That’s the adjudication process, the adjudicators, and what constitutes a decision to resolve the matter in question! Without this agreement, it is not possible to agree to abide by the decisions of the court to resolve these matters of conflict and disagreement, no one is going to agree to allow a partisan biased court to decide matters of disagreement and conflict!
There are no competitive partisan electoral processes established to assemble any aspect of our governing systems, State or Federal, FOR A REASON. Meaning, you cannot run for higher office in the United States, those of President, Vice President, Senators, and Governors, and no executive and judicial appointments can be made without the concurrence of the legislative assembly, meaning the legislative assembly must agree on the appointment process, all the persons considered for the appointments, and what constitutes a majority consensus for concurrence for the choice!
That’s what a “Democracy” is all about, “AGREEMENT”, and you cannot win agreement, or the suffrage to determine agreement, or the power and control of the legislative assembly to determine agreement, or the control of the legislative process which governs how an agreement is reached!
I think you political geniuses need to sit down with our founding documents until you learn how the States agreed to make the collective agreements of the States as the Union assembled in a congress!
We are long past the point of principle Professor. We literally have a major member of the Trump administration running a political raffle and paying folks to vote. That’s where we are.
Jeff said We literally have a major member of the Trump administration running a political raffle and paying folks to vote.
Jeff, your Democrat party has been literally paying black Americans on their poverty plantations for DECADES for their votes.
The ChiComs and Putin have been literally paying your presidential contenders – Clinton and Biden – to purchase favor in the White House.
George Soros has literally been purchasing the elections of Attorney Generals and State Prosecutors.
Jeff, your hypocritical complaints mark you as another Cheap Fake American.
I am and was a Republican before you were born. What we have going on today is not Republicanism. It is Trumpism and the difference is profound sir.
The “Act” of voting does not constitute a “Democracy”, in fact voting is just a tool to determine concurrence by a majority consensus in a legislative process, not to determine composition and control of our governing institutions based upon majority party affiliation!
There are only two purposes for voting, either as a legislative assembly or to form a legislative assembly. When the people, ALL THE PEOPLE NOT JUST PARTICIPATING VOTERS, vote directly as a legislative assembly, that constitutes a democracy of the people. When the people vote to form an exact representation of ALL THE PEOPLE of their State assembled as the Most Numerous Legislative Branch of their State’s Legislature, that constitutes a Republican Form of Government, where ALL THE PEOPLE participate as equals through a representation as if they were present in person to participate in the legislative process with equal suffrage to determine matters under consideration by ALL THE PEOPLE by a majority consensus of ALL THE PEOPLE!
I know this is hard for some of us to understand!
I think what you mean is that the Left is “long past” that point.
It keeps evading the fact that Crawford has outraised Schimel by some 2-1, and is being funded by billionaires such as Soros and Pritzker.
“It keeps evading the fact that Crawford has outraised Schimel by some 2-1, and is being funded by billionaires such as Soros and Pritzker.”
That’s the consequence of voting for judgeships. Republicans favor elections for judges, until it doesn’t fall in their favor.
This is why any election for judges, especially when there is extreme party polarization will always be a political issue, not one of merit.
It’s interesting to note that recently in Kansas a Satanic group petitioned the state to perform a black mass as a form of protest in the capitol building. The reaction from conservatives and even the Democratic governor showed they were trying to prevent the perfectly legal function by making rules and declarations to stymie or frustrate any attempt to exercise their constitutional right.
I’m surprised Turley never mentioned is incident because it perfectly illustrates what he’s talking about regarding government picking and choosing which religion/s shoud have preference.
George posted: I’m surprised Turley never mentioned is incident
I’m surprised that you allowed yourself, just this once, to divert from your daily and unanimous posts that claim Professor Turley is always wrong and you are always right
But then, it was actually intended as a backhanded Democrat smear, as we all know.
George, you will never grow beyond being a Cheap Fake American Marxist.
I don’t say he’s always wrong. I simply criticize his position which is fair game. Even Marxists in in this country have freedom of speech. Crazy isn’t it?
I am curious professor how it’s determined that appointed judges is less of a political process
Politics and raw power show a larger immediate return on investment than honesty and principles.
Ruling Class Lesson #1: Teach the peasants honesty and principles through religion and education. Slam transgressors with the full force of the law. This creates a more compliant slave class and a more fertile field for the ruling class’ rapacious and parasitic behavior.
Ruling Class Lesson #2: Use power to hide and protect how rulers actually operate. Destroy any who would expose this reality.
First, this is a problem created by the Supreme Court when they determine that they decided
that It was part of their job to determine whether a party’s religious belief was sincere or not. What a mistake.
Second, professor, as much as you would like it to be about policy, this is not the world we are living in right now and it is one of the reasons that the left is kicking ass. They only play politics and until the right and moderates figure that out and act on it, they will continue to lose even when they win.
An interesting article and strange decision by the Wisconsin Court. I am especially heartened by the SCOTUS ruling and like to see liberal and conservative united in common cause. I am partisan but I never mind a decision that re-affirms that we are all in the same boat and that we are all bailing water together to keep the boat afloat.
I have never heard of a court decision where a religious organization was deemed unworthy because it did not pray enough or proselytize enough.
Is the Wisconsin Court an Inquisition where we have to achieve a higher level of purity?
Maybe the Wisconsin Court should remember Ben Franklin’s words
“We should all hang together or we will surely hang separately “.
A useful remembrance in the Days of Rage
Apparently we shall all hang together. It’s the politics of simple criminals.
It’s quite amazing that so many become thieves when all repercussions are eliminated. Thieves include murderers and the theft of life.
Apparently they’ve brought their 3rd world ideas and religions and behaviors with them?
The noise is incredible. Yelling, screeching, gesticulating, constantly with horrible off key music.
They destroy what God made. They’ve gone stark raving mad from neglect, annoyance and abuse.
It’s bleak.
When you elect judges or justices politics will always be a deciding factor no matter what judicial ideology one prefers.
In Texas, this is particularly true. What is interesting is how the Trump administration is using Elon Musk to what is essentially the buying of votes. The outcome of the election will not just point to the direction the court will take it will also point to the direction voters want the court to take. If the Democrats win could prove to be a thorn on the Republican agenda. Republicans are already talking about impeaching judges because they don’t like their rulings. Some are even floating the idea of defunding certain districts courts to neuter their ability check the executive branch’s overreach.
Turley may not be a fan of state elected judges and justices. But Republicans certainly are. They love to complain about “unelected judges” or “activist judges” you can’t complain when they are elected by the people and their expectation that they will abide by the expectation and the reason the people voted for them. How can a judge be impartial when he/she relies on voters to be elected or retained based on expectations instead of the law?
George posted What is interesting is how the Trump administration is using Elon Musk to what is essentially the buying of votes.
What is obvious is that George is in hysterical rage because Elon Musk has been killing hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer abuse and fraud – agencies and programs specifically intended and used to buy votes for Democrats. And Americans elected Trump on his promise to end that.
As always, George is a hypocritical Cheap Fake American Marxist who demands that taxpayers of all parties foot the bill to pay Democrats to purchase the votes of their Identity Politics classes.
No what musk is doing is not buying votes
It is just a way to GOTV that democrats wish they thought of
The republican agenda is to dismantle the unconstitutional progressive agenda
There is no republican agenda to transform America
MAGA
Is make america great AGAIN
It is an agenda to return to simpler government that worked better
Republicans are talking about impeaching judges that have exceeded there jurisdiction
In the USA we have one president at a time
Not a president and 1400 robed wanna bees
There is not a good way to get judges
You can get activists regardless
Others have cited Hamilton
The most progressive founder
In stating that the judiciary is not dangerous because they are limited to guestions of law and constitution and only in cases or controversies
An activist judge is one who tries to decide what is right
Not what is constitutional or lawful
There is zero doubt that any president may fire executive staff
Cut wasteful fraudulent or abusive spending
Deport illegal immigrants
We can debate the I’d that have to be dotted
But the power to do these things rests with the president
Activist courts are claiming otherwise and they are not merely wrong but corrupt
And absent quick correction of their lawfare the should be impeached and removed
How can a judge be impartial
And more important stick to the case the law and the constitution if they owe their office to whoever appointed them ?
There is no perfect way to get judges You
The days of where we could expect the majority of judges to rule on anything other than their own political ideology is long past – if it ever existed. And if a judge does rule on something that one party or the other objects to, then that person is is subject to all sorts of calumny.
And that happens on both sides, although it does appear to happen less frequently on the left – they seem to be more in lock step