President, Kenosha County Bar Association
Andrew Wier is a life-long democrat, former politician, and has been a lawyer for 15 years. He worked for five years as a prosecutor reporting to democrat District Attorney Patricia Hanson in Racine County. He works now for Habush Habush & Rottier, a personal injury firm. Since 2018, he has been the president of the Kenosha County Bar Association. The Kenosha County Bar Association is so irrelevant and insignificant that it has to entice members to join it. For example, all Wisconsin Lawyers are members of the Wisconsin State Bar, and must be. They do not need to be a member of their local bar. If a lawyer pays $65 annually to be a local member, they can bypass security at the Kenosha County Courthouse by paying an additional yearly fee of $15. The primary benefit of joining Wier’s Bar, is to bypass Deputies and the metal detector.
Some local attorneys find this to be preposterous and even refer to it as a “bribe” of sorts. The Kenosha judges, mostly liberal, and Clerk of Courts, Becky Matoska (D) allow this practice that is very suspect to many members of the community. They feel like paying $80 a year doesn’t make a lawyer less likely to bring a gun or any other contraband into court. It’s nonsensical. The Kenosha County Bar is made up of more than 90% democrats.
Wier’s political career seems to not be over yet, though. Wier has become heavily involved in the Kenosha County DA’s Race. He wants his friend Carli McNeill (D) to win the race. He decided to use his position as president of the Bar to hold a campaign event supporting McNeill. Disingenuously, he is claiming that local attorney, and Republican nominee for DA, Xavier Solis, will be attending. He posted on Facebook and is sending out several emails implying that Solis will be taking part in the event, even though Solis has told Wier at least 10 times that he will not be in attendance.
“I’ve declined to participate in many special interest ‘forums’, especially because this is a partisan race,” said Solis. “I told Wier many times to stop telling people that I’m attending this event. I will not be there and I’ve been clear about that for many months. The Kenosha County Bar Association is supposed to be non-partisan,” Solis added.
Still, when contacted by KCE, Wier told us that he believes that Solis might change his mind. We asked Wier why he is continuing to spread false information by insinuating Solis’ participation. “Attorney Solis has indicated an intention to not participate. The post and notices have clearly indicated that we issued an open invitation to the candidates, which implies a pending invitation, not one that is accepted or committed. We hope he decides to attend as the event draws near,” said Wier. Wier wrote to KCE on October 10, 2024, that “I would be happy to have a longer discussion when I am free.” He never called us.
Wier didn’t answer the remainder of our questions directly. He used carefully crafted lawyer/politician-like responses ignoring the questions, especially about partisanship. He also sent the notice of the event to liberal organizations, not Kenosha County Eye.
Plainly put, Wier is holding a campaign event and giving McNeill (D) a platform to convince people why they should vote for her, under the guise of it being a “public forum.” McNeill is capitalizing on Solis’ refusal to participate. She’s telling everyone he’s afraid to participate. The Kenosha Woman’s Newtork recently held a “forum” where the ultra-liberal Clerk of Courts Beck Matoska (D) “moderated.” Again, Solis refused because of The Kenosha Woman’s Network’s extreme left leaning platform and the moderator being an elected democrat.
Matoska and The Kenosha Women’s Network seemed to tailor the questions to McNeill. It’s executive director has openly endorsed McNeill many times in public and on social media. McNeill also seemed to know the questions beforehand. Here is an example:
In this question and answer by McNeill, she forgets about all of the dozens of black men she had put in prison for minor drug crimes over the last decade.
Opinion:
The Clerk of Courts and the judges should allow all attorneys to bypass security or none of them. Extorting money from attorneys to have this bizarre privilege that is nonsensical is malarky. Also, to Andrew Wier, and the rest of the Kenosha County Bar Association leadership: It diminishes the already terrible credibility of your group when you meddle in elections, especially while blowing spoke up our asses. This isn’t a “forum.” It will be a group of liberals watching Carli answer softball questions and ignore her terrible record as a prosecutor and leader. She won’t be asked questions like, “Why is your record in the courtroom so terrible?” and “Why did you charge Kyle Rittenhouse with multiple counts of murder and pawn the case off on T. Clair Binger?” For the Kenosha County Bar to prop up their candidate so brazenly is a black mark on the Kenosha legal community. This shouldn’t happen.
Here is a Facebook post of Wier’s from 2020, so when he says “I’m not a democrat,” you can show him this:
25 Responses
Bar Association?
Probably a cash bar at $10 per drink.
I will bring my own.
The current regime is trying really hard to hang on to that power.
Another word you could have used for power is slime.
Typical ambulance chaser!
In full context, doesn’t the Bar Association regularly hold candidate forums where all candidates are invited? There was just a judicial forum with Judge Iverson and now former Judge Gagliardi. KCE covered that.
Non-partisan, yes. Judge races are non-partisan. For DA, you have to declare a political party.
Regardless, Bar Associations across the country hold candidate forums in partisan races, too. The State Bar of Wisconsin has candidate forums for Attorney General, for example. And it’s unprecedented for a candidate to boycott such a forum.
They hate Solis because he doesn’t play their games. He doesn’t fall in line. He also is not attending events with sitting judges and taking pictures with them because he knows judges have an ethical duty to stay out of partisan elections.
There has been far too much involvement of politics in supposedly nonpartisan races. Judges are ethically prohibited from supporting the candidacy of anyone in a partisan election. They can like any other citizen attend forums and discuss issues but cannot take sides. That has not always been scrupulously followed.
Tell that to Iverson and Nedweski.
Nedweski isn’t a judge. Did you mean some other judge?
Iverson supporting her during her signature gathering party and allowing Nedweski to advertise she would be there. Check Nedweski’s Facebook, she didn’t even try to hide it. Iverson was a judge elect and also a commissioner – both prohobit her supporting a partisan candidate… but she did it anyway. Looks like political payback for Nedweski supporting her. Which is hilarious since everyone knows Heather is a huge liberal. Ask her about her framed photo of RUTH BADER GINSBERG that hung in her office for years and years until she put on her conservative undercover outfit. She fooled the entire Kenosha County Republicans and she is the biggest phony around.
We tried to tell people that before the election but Gagliardi was painted as some left wing loonie just because he was appointed by Evers. Gabriele and Iverson are buddies and Gabriele is also involved with a firefighter who got their union to side with Iverson. Frankie wasn’t perfect but he was not an “insider.” We need some better candidates.
Sorry that I backed Gabriele when she first ran. Hindsight being 20/20, Commissioner Pfeuffer would have been a better choice.
I saw Angie Gabriel out campaigning with Carlie this summer. But then again nobody ever accused Angie Gabriel of being an ethical judge.
Word on the downtown streets is AG likes to over imbide and stumble around downtown bars like a college kid on spring break…hard to read the rules of ethics when you have double vision.
If ony we knew a PI who could get photos of the drunken habits of unethical judges…
She should have decided if she wanted to be a judge or DA. There are some who call her a prosecutor in a robe.
It makes no sense for Mr. Solis to avoid this forum. Nobody should assume that all lawyers are Democrats or would vote for Ms. McNeill. There is interest in hearing from Mr. Solis. If elected, he and his staff will have to face those lawyers every day. As officers of the court they will likely want to know his ideas and plans. There is no down side to showing up. In fact, he might take the wind out of some sails.
90-95% of the Kenosha County Bar Association are democrats. If you worked in the legal field, you’d know that.
So what if they are Democrats? That doesn’t mean they’d automatically vote for McNeill. They have to work with whoever is in office so they have a vested interest in hearing from everyone (and not all lawyers think McNeill is the greatest thing since sliced bread).
I agree that many of the local lawyers skew to the Democrats but 90-95% seems high.
They all stick together and if they don’t do their research they just jump on the bandwagon…laziness!
I work in corrections and it’s the same way.Most all are democrats.
BTW–agree with Kevin that all lawyers with ID should be able to bypass courthouse security.
WE NEED ALL NEW BLOOD IN THERE. GET THE CURRPTION OUT OF THERE
The Kenosha County Bar Association is totally irrelevant to lawyers practicing in Kenosha, much less the general public.
Solis is too smart to get ambushed with gotcha questions by Carli’s handlers while she fields prearranged soft ball questions.
Sorry Mr. Queer, no mean no!
Hahaha, too smart!? That’s the funniest thing since Donnie Boy swaying to music.
If Harris can be on Fox News, Solis can put on his big boy pants. What a wuss.