Although not as high profile as the madness a few months ago in Madison, our neighbor to the east recently provided Minnesotans with another valuable example of special interests trumping what’s best for governance.

What typically would have been a low-key race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat essentially became a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker.

Because Wisconsin allows judicial campaigns to be treated like campaigns for other elected office, special interests (and big money) on both sides went crazy. The results? There still is no declared winner in the race between incumbent Justice David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, yet their backers combined to spend more than $4.53 million on the campaign.

This is important to Minnesota because unless cooler (nonpartisan) heads prevail, our state’s judicial races could face that same fate. That should be disconcerting to anyone who wants judges focused on justice, not clouded by the special interests that funded their election.

Think about it. What if you’re a doctor facing a lawsuit and your judge was elected thanks to big donations from personal-injury lawyers? What if you’re a patient and your judge won office with help from supporters of tort reform? Suddenly your shot at justice seems a little less fair, doesn’t it?

If you think that won’t happen, just look at Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race. The Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee noted how two reports — one from WisPolitics.com and one a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School — found conservative groups spent about $2.5 million while a liberal group spent $1.9 million on their respective candidates.

Which candidate got whose money? Does that really matter? Either way, the winner takes the bench thanks to some deep pockets.

As we have noted previously, there is a way to avoid — or at least minimize — special interests swaying judicial elections and justice.

Since 2005, we’ve backed a retention-election system idea from the Citizens Commission for the Preservation of an Impartial Judiciary.

It calls for a nonpartisan commission to generate a list of qualified candidates. When a judgeship opens, the governor appoints someone from that list. After a set time, another nonpartisan commission evaluates the performance of that judge. In the next election, voters are given that performance review and asked to vote on whether the judge should continue. If the judge is voted out, the process starts over.

It might seem like a tedious process. It’s better, though, than electing judges who take the bench potentially beholding to whatever groups funded their election.

— St. Cloud Times. April 11