As reported a few days ago, the Wisconsin GQP mafia is trying to strong arm newly seated Justice Janet Protasiewicz into recusing herself from two cases before the state supreme court regarding their gerrymandered district maps. The GQP syndicate is claiming that Protasiewicz had prejudged the cases because she commented that it was obviously the maps were rigged.

Their argument suffered a severe blow when Justice Protasiewicz released a letter to Associated Press that she received from the Wisconsin Judicial Commission notifying her that they had dismissed several complaints they had received regarding this:

The letter, signed by Judicial Commission executive director Jeremiah C. Van Hecke, does not contain details about the complaints or the panel's deliberations. It notes that commissioners considered a number of factors including the comments in question, the state's Code of Judicial Conduct and several previous court rulings.

Those cases included findings that restricting a judicial candidate's speech during a campaign violates the First Amendment and that sharing one's personal views does not necessarily constitute a promise, pledge or commitment to rule a certain way.

The nine-member Judicial Commission is an independent agency tasked with investigating and prosecuting "allegations of judicial misconduct or disability on the part of Wisconsin judges and court commissioners."

The GQP mafia dom, Robin Vos, remained undaunted by reality or logic and promised to proceed with the shakedown:

“The Judicial Commission’s memo, released today, only muddies the waters. The Judicial Commission decided Justice Protasiewicz could not be sanctioned for what she said on the campaign trail. The Commission did not address whether she can sit on a case after accepting $10 million in campaign funds from the Democrat Party—the interested party in the redistricting case. Nor did they address whether she may sit on a case having made commitments for how she would rule that are inconsistent with the obligation to be impartial.”

Vos really must be in a panic, because that response makes absolutely no sense.

First he admits that there is no there there. OK, that part is fine.

But then he brings up that the Democratic Party gave her $10 million in campaign funds, which is true. What is not true is that the Democratic Party is a part of either lawsuit.

Then Vos goes even further off the deep end by saying that Protosiewicz "made commitments" on how she would rule, which is as far from the truth as can be. What Protasiewicz said was this:

In January, Protasiewicz called the state's legislative maps "rigged" in a public forum and in March, she told Capital Times reporters in a podcast interview she would "enjoy taking a fresh look at the gerrymandering question."

"They do not reflect people in this state. I don't think you could sell any reasonable person that the maps are fair," Protasiewicz said in the January forum. "I can't tell you what I would do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and the maps are wrong."

But then again, it's never been about justice or doing the right thing with the GQP. It's always about maintaining the power to forward their fascist causes.