In Wisconsin, there’s an electoral race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. (Judicial seats are sometimes filled by appointment, sometimes by election. I disapprove of the election method.)

Now in the seat is Rebecca Bradley. She had planned to run for the seat, when the previous justice announced plans to  retire. Instead he died, and she was temporarily appointed by Governor Scott Walker. Because the far-right-wing Walker had already appointed her to two lower court seats, we may guess her politics suit him.

In early April, Bradley will be in an election for the seat she now occupies, running against JoAnne Kloppenburg, a judge who’s served under both Democratic and Republican governors.

There’s been ugly electioneering. (I disapprove of judicial elections.)

Bradley supporters have accused Kloppenburg of being soft on crime. Or too tough – “Citizens for a Strong America,” a Koch-connected lobbying group, claims she jailed an 80-year-old farmer for refusing to plant native vegetation on his farm. No, actually.

But the big news in this campaign are op-eds and letters Bradley wrote while attending Marquette University. She was a fire-breathing young conservative, who held punitive views on what constitutes normal and decent human sexuality. She also expressed strong views on Bill Clinton and on people despicable enough to vote for him.

These 1992 writings were unearthed and publicized by One Wisconsin Now, a liberal advocacy organization that takes great interest in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections.

In one letter, Bradley snarls about the “folly and ignorance rampant at Marquette” – I’m with her so far, since folly and ignorance seem usual on college campuses – but then reveals she’s outraged by the creation of a Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Affairs Committee and support for “a typical fringe group of liberal activists called AIDS Awareness.” Why are they “attempting to bring legitimacy to an abnormal sexual preference?” How can they “justify… a group which willingly causes 70% of all AIDS cases?” In case you wonder how she feels about gay people, she tells us they are “degenerates who basically commit suicide through their behavior.” Instead of supporting the above groups, student government should be “trying to educate us about the merits of abstinence, which happens to be the ONLY guarantee against infection….”

In an op-ed titled “Clinton voters have damned the rest of us to misery,” Bradley veered between “We have elected” and “you have elected” viewpoints. She began by saying “we” have elected Bill Clinton, a “tree-hugging, baby-killing, pot-smoking, flag-burning, queer-loving, draft-dodging, bull-spouting ’60s radical socialist adulterer” and that his election “proves that the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil….” (Wait, what if a plurality were totally stupid, and a plurality were entirely evil, adding up to a majority?)

She broke down the evil/stupid a bit more. “Either you condone drug use, homosexuality, AIDs-producing sex, adultery and murder, and are therefore a bad person, or you don’t know that he supports abortion on demand and socialism, which means you are dumb.” (Notice: she finds adultery and condoning adultery to be bad.)

She predicts: “You have… voted for a murderer who will prevent innocent people from getting the life-saving surgery they need, while self-centered women can get abortions any day. One will be better off contracting AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the politically correct disease will be getting all of the funding. How sad that the lives of degenerate drug addicts and queers are valued more than the innocent victims of more prevalent ailments.”

She ends: “Anyone who could consciously vote for such a murderer is obviously immoral. …you did vote for him. You deserve it. But no thanks for damning the rest of us to this misery.”

When these early writings were released, there was a furor. A Fox News affiliate looked for anything Kloppenburg might have written in college, and reported they came up empty. Bradley made the following statement:

Recently an article I wrote while a college student at Marquette 24 years ago has surfaced on left leaning blogs and now the mainstream press. I was writing as a very young student, upset about the outcome of that presidential election and I am frankly embarrassed at the content and tone of what I wrote those many years ago.

To those offended by comments I made as a young college student, I apologize, and assure you that those comments are not reflective of my worldview. These comments have nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist, and they have nothing to do with the issues facing the voters of this state.

This is a blatant mudslinging campaign to distract the people from the issues at hand. This election is about diametrically opposed judicial philosophies. I have run a positive campaign focused on the rule of law and strict adherence to the U.S. and Wisconsin Constitutions. I am proud of the twenty plus years of experience I bring to this race, including my time as a Judge on the Milwaukee children’s court, the appellate court, and Supreme Court. I will work for the people of this state to ensure that justice is served and upheld on the state’s highest court.

I translate: ‘I was a child! I’m embarrassed, so please don’t look! Sorry if you were offended by a babbling toddler with her own column! Because I’m really great. I’m an adult now. Look, a flag!’

She’s much too vague. What is it about the content and tone that she’s embarrassed by? If the things she said when she was very very young are not reflective of her views on, for example, gay people and Democrats, what are her views now? Because I do think there might be related issues facing the voters of Wisconsin.

I wonder if Bradley’s real embarrassment could be that she put her ideas on record. On the other hand, I suspect it’s true that some of her views have changed. She did tell Fox she’d be willing to perform same-sex weddings. (Easy to say – who’s likely to take her up on it?) The local Log Cabin Republicans say she attended a fundraiser for the gay-rights group FAIR Wisconsin.

On a talk radio show, she said, “Those words in no way reflect the person I am today. I’ve lived a lot of life in the 24 years after that, and I’ve become a much better person than I was back then. My views on these issues have changed, and I’m a fair and compassionate person to every person who has come before me as a judge.”

That’s better than her official statement, implying as it does that she was not only young, but that her remarks came from a less good standpoint. But it’s still utterly vague. Every person? Who are those persons? Maybe she means she’d be fair and compassionate to gay people and Democrats, but doesn’t want to come right out and say it for fear of alienating supporters.

And it seems possible that her aversion to adultery has changed, as suggested by a 2005 affidavit. Bradley was representing one J. Andrew Bednall in a child placement case, and Bednall’s ex objected, on the grounds that Bednall and Bradley had a romantic relationship. Bednall had run a law firm where Bradley worked. The attorney representing the child’s interest also thought Bradley was a bad choice, as someone who had exchanged Christmas presents with the kid in the past. But Bradley said there was no conflict.

“At one time I had a romantic relationship with (Bednall), which we both believed might result in marriage. We broke off that relationship in November 2002, although we have continued to date on a nonexclusive basis since that time.”

In addition to saying there was no conflict, Bradley also said Bednall’s wife should pay her costs for hiring an attorney to argue that she did not have a conflict of interest. The judge let Bradley remain on the case, but refused her request for costs. (A few weeks later the Bednalls reached an agreement about the kid.)

Bradley appears to have done okay despite that misery she once predicted. But she’s not happy about those writings coming to light. She doesn’t want to clarify her current views. “I have apologized, and it’s time to move on from the things I said and did when I was a kid 24 years ago.”

Blaming the media for the controversy, she grumped, “I’m somebody who has put myself out there to serve the people of Wisconsin, and I deserve a little more respect than I`m receiving right now,” and “It’s becoming pretty overkill.”

The election takes place April 5. Things may easily get uglier before then. Which is why I dislike judicial elections. They produce nasty electioneering, and they produce judges who are afraid of how their rulings will play in the next election, and how they’ll go over with donors. Thus they erode judicial independence.

Maybe Scott Walker would agree with me in this instance, since I suppose he’d like to give Bradley a permanent appointment and be done with it all.

Pfft. He can’t make me abandon my principles.

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Update: Bradley won the election, 52% to 48%, for a ten-year term.