When he announced that he was running for that judgeship in 2009, Gundrum made it clear that he wanted to be an ideologically driven jurist. “I think it would be good to have a person with a solid conservative view of the law,” the Republican stalwart said.
The incumbent judge who Gundrum used his political connections to beat said, at the time, that he was “astounded” by Gundrum’s decision to pigeonhole himself as a judicial activist.
“I don’t know what kind of knowledge (Gundrum) has about criminal law,” said Judge Richard Congdon. “There’s nothing conservative or liberal about courtroom work. If somebody needs to go to prison, you send them to prison. If somebody needs to go to prison for a long time, you send them to prison for a long time.”
Judge Congdon was, of course, correct. But in conservative Waukesha County, Gundrum’s pitch for judicial activism prevailed.
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