2008—Wisconsin voters, presented the opportunity to alter what one commentator aptly called the “4-3 liberal majority [that had become] the nation’s premier trailblazer in overturning its own precedents and abandoning deference to the legislature’s policy choices,” defeat associate justice Louis B. Butler Jr.’s bid to remain on the court and elect Michael Gableman in his place. But in September 2009, President Obama acts to foist Butler’s bad judging back on the people of Wisconsin, as he nominates Butler to a federal judgeship in the Western District of Wisconsin.