JoAnne Kloppenburg, challenger for the state Supreme Court, has requested a state-wide recount and also asked for a special independent investigator to look into the actions of Waukesha County and its (Republican, Prosser-associated) county clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Way to step up to the plate.
For background, see here and here. The first Maddow segment below also contains a good introduction to this story, for those who arrived late.
The Journal Sentinel (h/t commenter MG1 via email; my emphasis):
Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg asked Wednesday for a statewide recount - the first in 22 years - to check the results in the April 5 state Supreme Court race she lost to Justice David Prosser.Kloppenburg also claims that after the election, Prosser "had a one-on-one meeting with Republican Gov. Scott Walker on the day after the election - an explosive charge in an officially nonpartisan race". Right. And the day after that meeting, the Walker administration "asked the Supreme Court to quickly get involved in a Dane County case that has blocked implementation of Walker's controversial plan to sharply limit collective bargaining" — his Kill the Unions bill.
That recount will start next week, at taxpayers' expense, the state Government Accountability Board said. ... The election initially appeared much closer, with Kloppenburg up by 204 votes, before Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced her initial, unofficial tally failed to include the 14,315 votes from the City of Brookfield.
Kloppenburg also called on the board to appoint a special investigator to probe Nickolaus' "actions and words."
Prosser denies that the meeting took place. Proof that he lied could be bad, but on a party-line vote in a 4-3 Court, censure would be unlikely. (Read the Journal Sentinel article for more on that alleged meeting.)
Here is a good report from Rachel Maddow. In it you can see parts of the Kloppenburg press conference:
I like her phrasing — investigate the "words and actions" of the Waukesha County clerk. She's going somewhere with that; Kloppenburg seems to have discovered her inner prosecutor. Good — after all, she's a career prosecutor who knows how to do this stuff.
GP
