The Daily Cardinal, the student paper for the University of Wisconsin at Madison lends its support to efforts to win full public financing for Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns.

The high cost of campaigning for a seat on the bench, combined with recent studies that raise serious questions about judicial impartiality when it comes to ruling on cases in which one of the parties has donated to the judge's campaign lends further weight to the widespread public support for a judicial Clean Elections program in Wisconsin:

The state Senate already passed this bill by a large margin. In an unusual move, seven sitting state Supreme Court justices sent Gov. Jim Doyle and state legislators a letter supporting public financing last year. Moreover, the bill is supported by a majority of Wisconsinites—65 percent of residents supported public financing of Supreme Court races in a January 2008 poll.

With the session winding down, the state assembly should take up this bill and send it to the governor’s desk. There is no excuse for conservatives in the lower house to hold up this bill any longer.