Joanne Kloppenburg was a virtual unknown when she began her campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice earlier this year. By the time the election happened, she had become a household name in Wisconsin. She lost the election, but now she is running to replace a retiring judge on Wisconsin’s 4th District Court of Appeals, one step below the Supreme Court.
The incumbent she nearly defeated in the April, 2011 Supreme Court race, David Prosser, is and was a close ally of Wisconsin’s divisive governor, Scott Walker. When Walker revealed plans to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights and gut funding for public services, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites took to the streets to protest. The Supreme Court race went from a snoozer for Prosser to a dead heat when union employees and their supporters embraced the Kloppenburg candidacy as a way to slow down Walker and the Republican legislature.
The officially non-partisan race eventually ended with a controversial recount that declared Prosser the winner despite dozens of "anomalies" in the way ballots were counted and stored. In the process, though, Kloppenburg impressed everyone left of Atilla the Hun as even-tempered, smart, and well-qualified to be a judge.