State Supreme Court chuckle

Twenty-five years ago, in another incarnation of this news organization, the Milwaukee Sentinel ran a feature called “Today’s Chuckle.” You know, some silly little joke aimed at brightening your morning.

Here’s today’s from a Journal Sentinel article:

“Wisconsin’s Supreme Court abruptly cut stipends this month for reserve judges, reducing compensation for a group that tried to get the high court to strengthen its conflict-of-interest rules. The stipend reduction for reserve judges comes at a time when the head of the Supreme Court is seeking to boost pay for sitting judges by 16%.”

Funny, right? A tribunal of sober, impartial above-the-political-fray jurists quietly and behind closed doors voted 5-2 to take a whack at a group that dared to suggest the court’s rules were too lax.

Think justices hiding knives under their robes.

Retaliation? Impossible. The court is above such pedestrian emotions. Revenge? Couldn’t be. The court doesn’t play games. This is just good policy. The court needs those cuts to, um, well, help pay for the raises for active judges. The reservists should be happy to make the sacrifice.

Justice Shirley Abrahamson dissented, writing, “In a closed conference room, with the seven justices talking and listening only to themselves, five justices adopted this amendment reducing the compensation of retired judges.”

So the stabbing was done, as such things are often done, behind closed doors where this court is doing more of its work, with no input from the people affected. This joke just keeps getting better.

Unless, of course, you’re a reserve judge. Or a citizen of Wisconsin wondering what is going on at the court, and whether the majority of Supreme Court justices really want to send the message that they might be a group of vindictive, secretive, cloistered people.

I usually frown on the practice of explaining jokes — either you get it or you don’t — but I’d make an exception in this case. Someone from the majority really needs to step up and explain this. Maybe there’s a good reason for the cut; a sound rationale. Maybe it was planned all along. But someone from the court needs to explain to the public why it was necessary and why it had to be done behind closed doors without bringing in the affected parties.