The woman David Prosser called a "total bitch" is the person who will appoint the judge in any recount challenge

No kidding. The following Rachel Maddow segment is good for many reasons, but at 1:50 she drops the bomb. Wisconsin state Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, whom David Prosser called — to her face — a "total bitch," is also the person who will assign a judge to any recount challenge in the WI judicial election that just took place. Interesting.



Our coverage of that little contretemps is here. Synchronicity is just a total b*tch, isn't it? (There's more in that Maddow segment; enjoy.)

By the way, I've been gaming out the various outcomes of a legal challenge relative to whether Justice David Prosser would recuse himself. In a normal world, of course he would recuse himself. I'm not sure this is a normal world.

So just in case, these seem to be the options. Keep in mind that if the Supreme Court is split, the lower court ruling is upheld. This means that — however you get there — if the lower court affirms a Prosser victory, Prosser will recuse himself. There's no reason not to.

But if, by some combination of events, the lower court affirms a Kloppenburg victory, the only way to undo that would be if Prosser doesn't recuse himself. That would allow the 4-3 conservative majority to overturn the unfavorable (to Prosser) lower court ruling.

Whether Prosser would be forced not to vote by some aspect of Wisconsin law, I don't know. As near as I can tell, U.S. Supreme Court justices get to decide recusal for themselves. Hugo Black, for example, refused to recuse himself in the Jewell Ridge Coal case.

If David Prosser gets to decide for himself whether to back away, it's uncertain to me whether shame or the obvious taint of self-dealing would be enough to stop him from plunging ahead. After all, Republican-dominated courts have entered that territory before.

GP