The Impartial Justice bill is officially the Impartial Justice law. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed the bill this morning. The governor's signing statement is here.

 

With today's action, Wisconsin becomes the first and only state to enact public financing legislation this year and joins North Carolina and New Mexico as the only states to ever create public financing systems for judicial elections.

 

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign thanks Governor Doyle and all the legislators who acted to make this long-sought reform a reality. WDC also thanks the many other groups that worked for the bill's passage, most especially Common Cause in Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. And we owe a great debt of gratitude to the countless citizens who took the time to contact their representatives and the governor to urge them to take this important step toward cleaning up state Supreme Court elections.

 

This historic breakthrough for campaign finance reform was a decade in the making, as the Impartial Justice bill was first proposed in 1999. It is the most significant campaign reform in Wisconsin since 1977.