The homepage of Leonie Industries' website

In April, two USA Today journalists claimed they were the victims of a deliberate “reputation attack” after they wrote a series of stories about the Pentagon’s contracts with groups that specialize in the production of propaganda. Days after the journalists began speaking with officials at the Pentagon and other sources for the story, fake websites and social media accounts set up in the names of the two reporters were mysteriously registered and began trying to discredit the stories.

Camille Chidiac, the minority owner and former president of Leonie Industries, one of the consulting firms that works with the Pentagon and was featured prominently in USA Today’s reporting, took responsibility for the misinformation campaign. USA Today reports:

“I take full responsibility for having some of the discussion forums opened and reproducing their previously published USA TODAY articles on them,” he said a statement released by his attorney, Lin Wood, of Atlanta.

“I recognize and deeply regret that my actions have caused concerns for Leonie and the U.S. military. This was never my intention. As an immediate corrective action, I am in the process of completely divesting my remaining minority ownership from Leonie,” Chidiac said.

Chidiac says Leonie Industries and the Pentagon had no knowledge of the smear campaign, and no funding from either entity was used in the attack. Leonie Industries has received at least $120 million in Pentagon contracts since 2009.

Earlier this month, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) called on the Pentagon to launch an investigation into the smear campaign against the USA Today journalists and said it should “consider suspending all contracts with Leonie Industries until such investigation is complete.”

NRCC Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)

Despite House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) promised “zero-tolerance” policy on ethical scandals, Buchanan continues to serve on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and to lead fundraising efforts for his party’s campaign committee. Watchdog groups and Democrats have called on Buchanan to resign — not just from those posts, but from his seat in Congress.

Sessions yesterday brushed aside calls for Buchanan to be removed from his NRCC post. He told the New York Times:

Vern Buchanan is entitled to have a fair hearing. At this point, there is no one that is making an accusation that he cannot sustain. And if it gets to the point where the ethics committee makes some decision, if they do, I’ll be glad to pay attention to that.

He notes that a “huge number of people that are Members of Congress, from outside groups, have been attacked for doing things. He’s not the only one.”

Watch the video.

While of course Buchanan and all politicians accused of political corruption are indeed entitled to a fair hearing, Sessions displays stunning hypocrisy on the point.

One of the most prolific of those unnamed “groups” attacking other Members of Congress is Sessions’ own NRCC. In a section of their website called “Democrats’ Dirty Laundry,” Sessions and his staff attack an array of Democratic members over allegations against them, even though they have not had a “fair hearing.”

Each post begins “SPIN CYCLE: Then-Speaker Pelosi Promised that Democrats Would ‘Demand the Highest Ethics from Every Public Servant’” and then contains an allegation against a Democrat described as “RINSE CYCLE.”

Given Cantor’s pledges of zero tolerance — and the wide array of Republicans serving in key roles under ethical investigation — perhaps Sessions should focus on washing his own dirty laundry and pay attention now.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority has decided not to reappoint the leader of a commission working to discipline Justice David Prosser.

Wisconsin Judicial Commission Chairman John Dawson’s term ends Aug. 1. Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and Justice Patrick Crooks [Editor's Note: Abrahamson, Bradley and Crooks make up the dissenting bloc on the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court] sent Dawson a letter Friday saying the court had decided it didn’t want him back.

The decision was made in a closed vote. The three justices didn’t reveal the tally, but it takes four votes to make a decision and all three of them said they supported Dawson. That means the four-justice conservative majority, which includes Prosser, did not.

Currently, the only pending ethics charge against a member of the state’s highest court is the charge against Prosser. Ziegler received a public reprimand for her ethical lapse and the charges against Gableman were eventually dropped after the remaining justices split 3-3 along party lines on whether Gableman committed misconduct.

The case against Prosser may get shut down before it even begins, however, thanks to a quirk in Wisconsin state law. Normally, when the judicial commission brings an ethics charge of this kind, a three judge panel is appointed to determine whether that charge has merits. As a technical matter, however, that panel must be approved by the state supreme court itself. Prosser is now trying to prevent such approval from even being given by asking his colleagues to recuse themselves from the case — something one of his fellow conservatives has already agreed to do. If two or more of his remaining colleagues follow along, that will mean that the court lacks a quorum to approve a panel, and the case against Prosser will be blocked by this technicality.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)

Last November, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report — based on Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out — accusing several members of Congress of profiting from stock trades made after receiving private briefings. In that report, the news program said that in 2008, one day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis, Bachus bet that the stock market would tank:

While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts.

Bachus, now chairman of the powerful House Financial Services committee that oversees Wall Street, apparently made a $30,000 profit. But, as the report noted, members of Congress have long been considered exempt from anti-insider trading laws. Despite the exemption, the OCE opened an investigation into whether the Bachus trades violated any rule.

While the investigation was in progress, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. The bill tightened some of the rules, but thanks to significant Wall Street lobbying, House Republicans successfully watered down the stronger Senate version. The final product left significant loopholes. Members of Congress can still own stocks in the industries they regulate and can still sell secret “political intelligence” to investors.

Friday, the OCE ended the inquiry. In a press release Bachus celebratedthe end of what he called a “destructive and disruptive, media generated assault,” saying:

It has been a long, painful, and frustrating experience to have a reputation built over many years sullied by untrue accusations. I also appreciate former SEC Chairmen Harvey Pitt and Roderick Hills and Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin for reviewing the allegations, determining they were false and meritless, and publicly coming to my defense. Perhaps the most gratifying aspect is that my constituents who know me best recently reaffirmed their faith in my character and my ability to serve their interests, and my personal commitment to them is to continue to serve with the highest level of effectiveness and accountability. Finally, I want to thank the OCE staff for their professionalism and the OCE Board for unanimously coming to the right conclusion. While their review and report should never have been necessary, I am pleased that they have helped clear my name.

Given that the rules in 2008 were not even the slightly tougher STOCK Act provisions, it is little surprise that the OCE found there was “not substantial reason to believe that a violation of House Rules and Standards of Conduct occurred.” Even if it did not violate the House’s permissive rules — and even if, as he claims, his behavior was not technically insider trading — the OCE’s action hardly has cleared his name. Significant questions remain about whether his dealings were ethical.

This ruling serves as a reminder of the gaping holes in Congressional ethics rules. And with unseemly — but unpunished — trading practices all too common, it is little wonder that Congress currently sports an approval rating in the low teens.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

On March 19, Rubio and the FEC agreed to a negotiated settlement in which his Senate campaign committee agreed to pay an $8,000 fine to settle charges that it accepted over $210,000 in “prohibited, excessive and other impermissible contributions.” This news was not made public until a POLITICO story this weekend. Perhaps most disturbing is that even after an internal campaign audit, the Marco Rubio for Senate committee failed to address more than $83,000 in improper or misreported donations.

Rubio, who has been frequently mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for Mitt Romney, has been in several previous ethical controversies, including:

Use of a Florida GOP credit card for personal purposes, many of which were reportedly only reimbursed by Rubio after media inquiries. Rubio’s 2010 campaign dismissed these allegations, saying they were reimbursed at the time.

Double-billing of Florida taxpayers for plane travel also billed to the state Republican Party. Rubio’s 2010 campaign claimed these happened without Rubio’s knowledge and were reimbursed.

Failure to disclose a $135,000 home equity loan from a bank controlled by political supporters. Rubio, in 2008, said his failure to disclose the loan was “an oversight” and that there was “nothing unusual about the loan or the application.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington included Rubio among its “Crooked Candidates” of 2010. And Romney’s own press secretary Andrea Saul, then a staffer for a rival candidate, blasted Rubio in 2010 as “another typical politician who uses his public office for personal gain and only comes clean once caught.”

Rubio’s office has not yet responded to a ThinkProgress request for comment, nor, according to POLITICO, to their request.

Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)

The report says:

Analysis of documents obtained to date supports the contention that Mr. Rivera purposely falsified his financial disclosure forms in an attempt to legitimize other source of income beyond his salary as a State Legislator. First, Mr. Rivera provided information on his initial financial disclosure submissions that wasfalse and then amended the forms to remove the information. Second, Mr. Rivera amended his financial disclosure forms claiming that $132,000 received from Millennium Marketing were liabilities (loans), when, in fact, documentary evidence indicates that it was compensation for being employed as a consultant to the Flagler Dog Track for the gaming referendum.

The Miami Herald reported yesterday that state prosecutors will not charge Rivera, as the statute of limitations has expired. IRS and FBI investigations into Rivera’s alleged tax evasion and failure to disclose $132,000 in “loans” from a company co-owned by his mother are reportedly ongoing. Rivera has denied the allegations and his campaign said in statements that Rivera “at all times acted in compliance with both the letter and spirit of Florida and federal campaign finance laws and has timely and properly reported all personal income” and that the investigation was an “unprofessional waste of taxpayer dollars.”

In 2010, now-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised that if his party won the majority in the midterm elections, he (as majority leader) ‘institute a zero-tolerance policy‘ on ethics violations. In light of these serious charges, the Republican leadership could show its commitment to this policy by beginning an Ethics Committee investigation, stripping him of his committee assignments, calling for his resignation or even moving to remove him from Congress. It has done none of these things. Even with these apparent ethical breaches, they continue to let Rivera serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (and, ironically, its Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee) and the Committee on Natural Resources.

This is yet another in a growing series of examples of just how little Cantor’s promised “zero tolerance” policy for ethical scandals really means.

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)

Buchanan is reportedly already under a separate ethics investigation for alleged incomplete financial disclosure. The committee did not identify the nature of the new inquiry, though it did say it will announce its course of action on the matter, on or before May 9. An aide to the Florida Republican said the Congressman was confident the committee would clear him of any wrongdoing. Buchanan is also reportedly facing a federal grand jury investigation.

Despite House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) stated “zero-tolerance” policy on ethics, Buchanan continues to serve as finance vice chair for the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP’s campaign arm). In fact, Buchanan was already one of more than 10 Republican Congressmen embroiled in ethics scandals.

Amusingly, Buchanan’s Congressional website includes stories calling for reform in light of a Bush administration ethics scandal at the Minerals Management Agency, and touts his work in support of a 2007 ethics and lobbying bill.

However, the bill that the Senate adopted is the same one that the House passed last month, not a stronger version that the Senate had written earlier and approved by a huge margin. The earlier version included a provision, championed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), that would have required Washington insiders who sell intelligence to corporate America to register as lobbyists. Grassley, who was one of the three votes against the bill, today took to the Senate floor to blast Congress for adopting the watered down House version:

On Tuesday the Republican Majority Leader of the House and the Democrat [sic] Majority Leader of the Senate worked together to thwart the will of 60 Senators and 286 Members of Congress. This is not the kind of bipartisan cooperation we need.

I won’t ascribe motives to anyone in this body, but I know that today’s actions only serve the desires of obscure and powerful Wall Street interests and undercut the will of an overwhelming majority of Congress. [...]

There are over 2,000 people working in the completely unregulated world of political intelligence, or political espionage as I call it. Right now, they are celebrating. They are celebrating because they know that its business as usual. They can continue to pass along tips they get from Members of Congress, Senators and staff and no one will be the wiser. They pass along these tips to hedge funds, private equity firms and other investors who pay them top dollar.

The lobbyists get rich. Wall Street traders get rich. But the American people lose.

The weaker House version of the bill was drawn up by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who had earlier blocked the GOP from moving an anti-insider trading bill at all. Last month, Grassley reacted to the House removing his political intelligence provision by saying, “it’s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

Under that proposal, the Wisconsin Supreme Court would review the panel’s findings and decide on Prosser’s fate. But yesterday, the embattled judge — who has explained the alleged assault as a “total reflex” reaction after Bradley “charged” him — suggested his own audacious proposal.

Prosser said all six of his supreme court colleagues should recuse themselves from the case, which would have the apparent effect of killing the proceedings.

“You have six justices who were present at the scene,” Prosser explained, “You have justices with actual bias who are eyewitnesses and, in effect, parties.” A former Republican Wisconsin house speaker, he also blasted the judicial commission for being “partisan.”

By Prosser’s logic, justices would be able to escape punishment by their colleagues for any indiscretion — as long as they committed it in the presence of the rest of the court.

The commission asked the high court to send the case to a panel of three appeals court judges to consider whether Prosser violated three ethics rules. The panel’s findings would then be sent to the high court, the only body that could make a binding ruling against Prosser.

The confrontation between Prosser and Bradley occurred in front of all but one of the other justices, who will have to decide whether to weigh in on the case or step aside. Stepping aside would effectively end the case.

This marks the fourth time in only a few years that a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative bloc faced a serious ethics complaint. Justice Annette Ziegler’s fellow justices reprimanded her in 2008 for ruling on cases as a lower court judge regarding a bank where her husband was a director. An ethics case against Justice Michael Gabelman for running a false ad against his predecessor was dropped only after the remaining justices split 3-3 along party lines — and Gabelman now faces a second complaint for refusing to recuse himself from cases argued by a firm that reportedly provided him with tens of thousands of dollars in free legal services.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)

The Florida Times-Union reports that Jett claimed Stearns offered him, through a middleman, “a job on Stearns’ campaign staff or cash to cover the approximately $25,000 Jett has personally spent on his congressional run,” and possibly “a job heading the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or a U.S. marshal position” pending future vacancies. Jett claimed to have audio recordings of the conversations, though he has not yet made those public.

Jett said he reported this to the FBI and that the Bureau is looking into the matter. A spokesman for the FBI’s Jacksonville bureau told ThinkProgress that as a matter of policy, they do not confirm or deny investigations.

According to Clay Today, a local newspaper, a Stearns spokesman denied the charges, saying:

Mr. Jett requested a meeting with Rep. Stearns through Stearns’ supporters indicating that he intended to drop out of the race. At the meeting, Jett announced that he would not drop out of the race. Neither Stearns nor his supporters suggested that Jett receive anything in return for dropping out and the meeting was terminated.

If the FBI does open an investigation, Stearns would join several Republican colleagues on the list of ongoing ethics scandals.

In 2010, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised that if his party won the majority in the midterm elections, he (as majority leader) and his colleagues would take the toughest possible stand on ethics.

I think as the Republicans emerge as a new governing majority, it is incumbent upon us to institute a zero-tolerance policy. We understand there were reasons for our being fired in ’06 and ’08. Some of that had to do with ethics violations. I mean we had several members under public investigations during the time of the ’06 elections. I think we’ve learned that that’s not a good way to gain the confidence of the people and that we ought to be instituting a zero-tolerance policy here.

“We’ve learned our lesson,” Cantor told the National Review Online, “We cannot tolerate any ethics violations or behavior, in terms of compromising the ethics that the people expect us to have as their representatives.” Watch the video:

So, how are they doing?

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), finance vice chair for the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP’s campaign arm), is reportedly under federal grand jury investigation for alleged reimbursement of campaign donors by his companies, improper tax deductions, inaccurate Congressional disclosure reports.
• Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), (R-AL) continues to chair financial services despite an ongoing investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for alleged insider trading.
• Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), continues to chair the House Armed Services, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), continues to chair the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Policy and Enforcement Subcommittee, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), continues to chair the House Rules Committee’s Rules Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) continues to serve, despite ongoing Federal Election Commission and House Ethics Committee investigations into reports that he engaged in illegal campaign fundraising.
• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) continues to serve despite reported IRS and FBI investigations into alleged tax evasion and failure to disclose $132,000 in “loans” from a company co-owned by his mother.
• Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) continues to serve despite a reported $117,000 in unpaid child support payments.
• According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA), and Tim Murphy (R-PA) have also been under investigation over the past two years for ethical issues, yet all three continue to serve.

Even Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was hit with an ethics complaint last September. The Office of Congressional Ethics has not yet addressed allegations by American Family Voices that Issa used his “public position to promote his private financial interest” and Issa’s office has denied wrongdoing.

Not only has the House leadership stood by their accused colleagues, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will headline a fundraiser for Buchanan’s reelection campaign this Saturday. But while they may not have learned the lesson, with 68 percent of the country disapproving of the job the House GOP is doing, according to a recent PPP poll, Cantor appears correct that the House Republicans’ ethical laxity is “not a good way to gain the confidence of the people.”

I appreciate that the show isn’t shy about about connecting Cole’s affection to the wild to a political worldview. “He was a passionate environmentalist,” one of the people eulogizing him says in news reports of his disappearance. But the show isn’t entirely clear on its relationship to that worldview. Cole’s explorations got him killed, or at least disappeared, and it’s clear that the time he sacrificed to his explorations that he could have spent with his family has left his son Lincoln with mixed feelings about the wilderness his father loved. “He missed my life to inspire a billion people I could give a shit about. There’s no magic out there,” he tells his mother. And later, he tells Lena, the daughter of another explorer who’s gone missing with Emmet, that “Science isn’t a great big wonder anymore. Discoveries are made in the lab, not the jungle.” It’s a perspective that downplays preserving the wild and focuses instead on the importance of human ingenuity and industry. But rather than just letting that statement sit, Lincoln gets pulled back into the jungle as his father sees it. Flooded by dragonflies, he admits to Lena, “Okay, that was pretty cool.”

That same canniness is present in the show’s examination of the ethics of reality television. Tess, Emmet’s wife and Lincoln’s mother, first shows up as the love of Emmet’s life. When we next see her, she’s meeting Lincoln in a bar, bringing cameras in to film her conversation with her grieving son who believes he’s just buried his father, telling him “They won’t pay if you won’t go.” Her behavior’s repulsive, but it’s also driven by need rather than pure greed: this is the way she can finance the search for her missing husband. Lincoln is surly around the crew once they’re on the river. “So Lincoln, tell us about your relationship with your father,” a producer asks him, only to get the entirely appropriate response of “Go fuck yourself.” (A side note, I appreciate that the characters are swearing like they would if they were real humans under stressful situations.) But by the end of the show, Lincoln’s playing along. After a touching, and theoretically private, moment between Tess and Lincoln, she points out that there’s a camera watching them—but he knows. She may be using him to get back to the river, but Lincoln has an agenda of his own.

There’s been a lot of conversation about reality television as horror show, especially in the wake of Russell Armstrong’s suicide. But things like The River and The Hunger Games are upping the stakes and trying to find a limit to what we’d let ourselves be entertained by—and what people will do to entertain us.

Simply put, “We the People” are fed up and have already entered into what is in effect a Second American Revolution because judges and other government officials behave as if they are “above the law,” in effect nobility who can do as they please. . . . In short, the comments of Chief Justice Roberts [suggesting that Kagan does not need to recuse] are an affront to the high ethical standards of our Founding Fathers and amount to a subversion of our laws. They are disgraceful at best and at worst amount to obstruction of justice. They are the result of someone who became Chief Justice by first ingratiating himself to the “Washington establishment,” and now seeks to act as the Chief Justice not just of the Court, but of this same establishment – which for decades has pushed the nation to the brink of revolution by representing mostly its own interests, perpetuating and consolidating its power and selling out “We the People.” This is why in large part the nation is in a deep crisis; the majority of Americans have little if any respect for either the Supreme Court or our judiciary as a whole, notwithstanding their current similar disdain for the other two branches of government.

The situation is as bad as in 1776 when “We the People” declared independence from King George III and the British Crown. In the 236 years since the start of the first American Revolution, our current ruling class, which is not of the mettle of our Founding Fathers, – who pledged their sacred honor, fortunes and risked their lives to create a free nation – has come full circle. Today, the Supreme Court and the other two branches of government have assumed the role of a “royalty” – in some ways worse than even King George III – who feel free to ignore the legitimate interests and grievances of “We the People,” because they believe they are a “protected class” and above the law.

So, to be clear, the claim here is that far-right Chief Justice John Roberts is part of a giant conspiracy to help Kagan preserve President Obama’s chief legislative accomplishment, that this conspiracy is “in some ways worse” than monarchy, and that the American people are presently responding to it with a “Second American Revolution.” And this is what passes as legal argument among the Kagan recusal crowd. Sadly, this argument is only slightly better than the absurd claim that the Affordable Care Act itself is unconstitutional.

As Gingrich himself admitted later in the interview, he was not exonerated on every count. While most of the initial charges against him were dropped, he was sanctioned on one count of flouting tax laws relating to a college course he taught that received non-profit status even though it was political in nature.

And contrary to Gingrich’s claim that House Republicans voted to reprimand him simply to move on, many said at the time that they were very disturbed by Gingrich’s actions. “Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) at the time. “If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment.” Even Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), who cast the lone dissenting vote on the ethics committee against charging Gingrich, said the Speaker made “real mistakes but they shouldn’t be hanging offenses.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, who has endorsed Romney and often speaks for him as campaign surrogate, made a similar statement on a conference call with reporters yesterday, saying the ethics records were a “very important piece of opaque material” that could hurt Gingrich in November if he won the nomination.

But Romney escalated the issue today when asked about it in South Carolina:

REPORTER: Others have mentioned that Newt Gingrich should release his congressional ethics report. Do you think he would release those?

ROMNEY: Of course he should, of course he should. One of the issues in this race raised last night by Rick Santorum was the fact that he was pushed out of the House by his fellow members. I think over 80 percent of Republican Congressman voted to reprimand the Speaker of the House. The first time in history.

Watch it:

“That must be so damning that that’s the kind of thing that would be an October surprise,” Sununu said yesterday.

Gingrich was the first House speaker in American history to be disciplined for ethical wrongdoing. A total of 84 ethics charges were filed against him on a host of issues, including violating federal tax law and House ethics rules. Most of the charges were dropped, but he was eventually sanctioned $300,000 by a overwhelming 395–28 House vote, with included many of Gingrich’s allies voting against him.

The 1,280-page ethics report is available online here, but there are many documents used in the House Ethics Committee investigation that have yet been publicly released.

In order to defend himself against this ethics complaint, Gableman received tens of thousands of dollars in free legal fees from a law firm that frequently litigates in front of his court. Yet Gableman has continued to sit on cases brought by that firm — even casting the deciding vote allowing Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attack on collective bargaining to go into effect.

In response to these two incidents, a member of the state legislature has now introduced a resolution calling for Gableman to be removed from the bench:

A Democratic state lawmaker circulated a resolution Wednesday calling for the ouster of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman because he presided over cases involving a law firm that had represented him without charging legal fees.

State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, an attorney who is also running for Congress for the district covering the city of Madison, asked her colleagues to sign on to the resolution by Jan. 18. The state constitution allows for the Legislature to remove a judge from office with a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and Assembly.

Although Roys’ resolution is very unlikely to receive the two-thirds majority it requires in the GOP-controlled state legislature, Wisconsin’s voters are not powerless if they agree with Roys that Gableman’s actions go too far. Because Gableman has served more than a year of his current term in elected office, Wisconsin election law allows him to be recalled.