Dallet defends boat outing despite conservative criticism
State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Dallet has come under criticism in conservative circles for going boating over the Memorial Day weekend after she previously voted to uphold Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order.
“Lockdown for thee, but not for me,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said earlier this week.
Dallet, a liberal justice who was elected to the high court in 2018, is now responding to her critics.
In a short statement, Dallet spokeswoman Alanna Conley said the justice did nothing wrong by going boating with some friends.
“Justice Dallet and her family are social distancing alongside one other family who are very close friends,” Conley said. “Nothing could have been safer than staying away from others out on a lake on a beautiful spring day.”
On May 13, the Supreme Court voted 4-3 to overturn Evers’ order closing Wisconsin bars, restaurants and schools in the hopes of quelling the spread of the coronavirus.
The high court concluded that the Democratic governor’s administration overstepped its authority by extending the order to May 26 without input from the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Dallet joined justices Ann Walsh
Bradley and Brian Hagedorn in siding with Evers.
In her dissent, Dallet wrote, “This decision will undoubtedly go down as one of the most blatant examples of judicial activism in this court’s history. And it will be Wisconsinites who pay the price.”
Conservative talk show host Dan O’Donnell of WISN-AM (1130) was the first to post Facebook pictures of Dallet and her family boating with another family on Big Cedar Lake on May 24 — two days before Evers’ order would have expired.
His report was then picked up by Carlson and the conservative website Empower Wisconsin, both of which chided Dallet and the families of other left-leaning politicians they accused of hypocrisy on stay-at-home orders.
Empower Wisconsin quoted Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who helped bring the lawsuit that overturned Evers’ directive.
“Whether it’s governors in Illinois and Michigan — or now liberals in Wisconsin — it’s clear that the Radical Left’s mantra on these lockdowns has become ‘for thee, not me,’” Fitzgerald said, borrowing from Carlson. “Now we need to focus on getting our economy back from the brink after the disastrous shutdown.”