A Milwaukee federal judge's article criticizing conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court for "undermining American democracy" has generated massive interest among legal commentators, on both sides.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman made his pointed observations in an article, "The Roberts Court's Assault on Democracy" set for publication in the Harvard Law & Policy Review. It was made available earlier this month online and broke out to more general readership this week with a blast of Twitter attention.

Adelman's article has been downloaded almost 5,000 times via the Social Science Research Network, an online repository of scholarly papers. None of his other articles were downloaded more than 50 times from the site.

Adelman, nominated by President Bill Clinton, calls Chief Justice John Roberts "disingenuous for claiming a justice's role is that of a neutral umpire calling balls and strikes.

"Rather, the Court's hard-right majority is actively participating in undermining American democracy," Adelman wrote.

The article posted March 6. As news of it spread, critics took aim on other sites. A popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, featured a post Tuesday from Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.

“This screed could have come from a Bernie stump speech. It has no place in a publication by a federal judge. Judge Adelman has come close to accusing Roberts of committing perjury — a crime, and an impeachable offense.”

Adelman, 80, went to Princeton and Columbia Law School. He served 20 years in the Wisconsin Senate, as a Democrat, until Clinton nominated him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in 1997.

According to an abstract of the 35-page article, Adelman identifies two main ways the court erodes democracy: through attacks on the poor and minorities' rights to vote, and by "reinforcing the enormous imbalance in wealth and political power" in America.

In 2014, Adelman struck down Wisconsin's voter ID law as unconstitutional.

It is unusual, though not unheard of, for federal judges to write articles about each other or overtly political topics. But Adelman even agreed to talk about his piece with the National Law Journal.

In a Q & A, Adelman said he felt it was important to say the things he did, but didn't mean to create a firestorm. He defended his approach to one of his topics.

"I think that the whole court’s approach to campaign finance has been, in a word, wrong. They overemphasize the sort of libertarian dimension of the First Amendment," Adelman said. "I don’t think they really consider the effect of their campaign finance decisions on democracy."

Asked about Chief Justice Roberts' recent rebuke of Sen. Chuck Schumer over his comments about justices nominated by President Donald Trump, Adelman decided he didn't really want to go there. Schumer had said justices would "pay the price" for a vote against abortion rights.

"Look, I guess I’d like to steer clear of anything political," he said. "I guess I’ve, just, by writing this, I think I’ve sort of gotten more into it than I wanted, frankly."

Not all legal commentators are aghast at Adelman's piece. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern said in Slate that it was "about time" liberal judges spoke up to counter more prolific conservative judges and justices.

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Contact Bruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187 or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.