Colas' Act 10 ruling draws outraged responses

[hue]

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/crime_and_courts/colas-act-ruling-draws-outraged-responses/article_1bfbf4c0-08b5-11e2-86b3-0019bb2963f4.html



A Dane County judge who struck down parts of Act 10, the state’s law weakening collective bargaining for some public workers, has drawn a spate of letters and phone messages expressing outrage in colorful, at times vitriolic, language.

“You are no more than a cheap political hack for the Marxist Democratic Party,” declares one email sent to Circuit Court Judge Juan B. Colas by someone using a fake name. He called the judge “some damned liberal activist kangaroo jurist that substitutes his own petty biases and opinions, for the rule of law.”

This was among eight critical and two positive emails or letters to the judge since his Sept. 14 ruling. The writer, who uses the closing “With Utter Contempt,” pegs Colas as racist for belonging to the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association, labels him a thug, and suggests that he move to a banana republic, like “Columbia” (sic). Colas was born in Colombia but has lived in Madison most of his life.

Colas’ ethnicity was also cited by a letter writer who noted his distinction as Dane County’s first Hispanic judge, saying he’ll “be know (sic) as the ‘first Hispanic judge’ to send the state of Wisconsin down the toilet.” That letter also asserted: “I hope your ruling holds!! Then when the state goes broke and they layoff (sic) firefighters, houses will burn to the ground.”
Another missive calls Colas’ 27-page ruling “DISGUSTING, DESPICABLE, REPREHENSIBLE.” An email from real estate agent Ed Konz in Sheboygan states, “Not sure who you think you are. I believe you should resign at once, you are a disgrace Sir to our Court system.”