Pro-Life Wisconsin endorsed attorney general candidate J.B. Van Hollen a day after his primary victory over Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher. While expected, the endorsement of the ""100 percent pro-life candidate"" raised questions about the prudence of special interest groups getting involved in the race for attorney general.
""The attorney general is charged with enforcing the law, and currently in Wisconsin the law is that women have the right to choose an abortion, so Van Hollen, if he's elected, will have to abide by that. He may not like it personally and politically, but that will be his job,"" said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, a non-partisan, non-profit citizen lobby, in response to Pro-Life Wisconsin's recent endorsement.
But others worry that it may not be so simple, and argue that Van Hollen, if elected, might have a difficult time separating his political views from his job.
""Attorneys general have decided not to pursue certain kinds of cases; sometimes they will not devote department resources to certain cases and prioritize things. If you're defending the state in a certain area and your heart's not into it, you just put it low on the priority list,"" UW-Madison political science professor Dennis Dresang said.
Dresang said endorsements often give special interest groups the ear of elected officials. ""It also is an issue where there's a special kind of access that typically goes with these endorsements, so that it's not power in a sense they are going to dictate, but they certainly have a special access, and people feel a certain ... kind of obligation and sense of owing someone who helps them get elected,"" he said.
Pro-Life Wisconsin insists that this is not the case. Deputy State Director of the organization Matt Sande said, ""We're not going to have any special access, no more access than anyone else would have. Certainly J.B. is a friend, we endorsed him, we're happy that he won. I know that he understands our issues and respects them. If I ever had a question for him or a concern, I know the door would be open, but it's no more open than it would be to any other group.""
Sande pointed to Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, who he claims used ""her office to make a social crusade"" and to ""advance her own social and political agenda.""
As of press time, the Van Hollen campaign has not responded to several requests for comment.
