April 27, 2015 1:16PM # Wisconsin’s Criminalization of Political Speech By [Roger Pilon](https://www.cato.org/people/roger-pilon) --- SHARE Just when you thought the long-running “John Doe” prosecution/​persecutions in Wisconsin couldn’t get any worse—SWAT teams conducting [pre-dawn raids on family homes](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french), [gag orders](http://mediatrackers.org/wisconsin/2015/02/09/will-lawmakers-heed-federal-judges-warnings-john-doe-secrecy) on the victims, and [the prosecutor’s recusal motion](http://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-prosecution-games-1427239894) directed against no fewer than four state supreme court justices, all over politically driven campaign finance allegations—Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm suggested over the weekend that Gov. Scott Walker [could be criminally charged](http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/in-iowa-scott-walker-raps-john-doe-connected-raids-on-supporters-b99488324z1-301309161.html) for lying. Walker’s “crime”? In Iowa on Saturday, he questioned whether the prosecution’s tactics were constitutional. As so often happens in litigation over [often inscrutable campaign finance law](http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-wall-street-journal-urges-us.html), this case is a tangle of legal complexities, many of which are outlined in [Cato’s amicus brief](https://www.cato.org/publications/legal-briefs/okeefe-v-chisholm), urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the appeal of the “John Does,” their lives on hold as they suffer in silence. At its conference last Friday, the Court considered their cert petition, but it was not included in the Court’s list of denials this morning, indicating a “hold” and hence an increased likelihood that the Court will hear the appeal. Only two weeks ago, in her first campaign stop in Iowa, [Hillary Clinton took a shot at the Roberts Court](http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/14/hillary-clinton-declares-support-for-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united/), calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Court’s *Citizens United* decision. That would amount to nothing less than an assault on the First Amendment’s protection of political speech. With that speech so threatened, no better illustrated than in the appalling Wisconsin prosecutions, it’s time for the Court to bring an end to this tyranny. ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).