One Wisconsin Now Delivers 10,000 Names to Supreme Court Calling for Prosser to Resign

MADISON, Wis. — One Wisconsin Now today delivered to the state’s highest court the names of more than 10,000 people calling for State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser to resign over reports from fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley that Prosser put her in a “chokehold” during an altercation in June.

“There is no excuse for David Prosser’s conduct and the people of Wisconsin are demanding he resign. Even Prosser’s ally Scott Walker has acknowledged how serious this incident is,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “There is one reason the eyes of the nation are focused on our state’s high court and it is because of David Prosser’s unconscionable conduct towards Justice Bradley.”

Prosser’s temper and abusive conduct has been well documented, ranging from his charging at a colleague on the floor of the State Assembly with his fists in the air — documented by a One Wisconsin Now video released in March 2011 — to the disgraceful calling of his colleague on the Supreme Court a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy her.”

According to media reports, this latest action and physical attack by Prosser took place as Prosser was concocting the majority opinion as the deciding vote allowing Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on 175,000 Wisconsin workers. Prosser and the conservative bloc of the Wisconsin Supreme Court were ramming through a quick decision on the case involving legislative Republicans’ violation of the state’s open meetings law.

Prosser and the conservative, pro-corporate bloc was focused on quickly releasing their one-vote majority decision eviscerating the state’s open meeting law to aide Republicans. The decision also came right after GOP Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said that if the court did not make its decision prior to his deadline, the legislature would reintroduce the collective bargaining attacks, which led to a statewide mobilization against the attack on working families that included protests topping 100,000 at the State Capitol, as well as six GOP senators currently being recalled by the voters in their communities.

“The fix was in. Prosser, Mike Gableman, Annette Ziegler and Pat Roggensack had their marching orders and they weren’t going to let anyone stand in their way,” said Ross. “Prosser took his bullying to a new level of unacceptable conduct and now he must go.”

Prosser, Gableman and Ziegler all owe their most recent elections to the activities of the state’s largest business lobby group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which spent in excess of $6 million during the troika’s campaigns. WMC has been a strong supporter of Gov. Walker’s attacks on working families.