A Wisconsin statewide election campaign—with the primary set for Feb. 21 and the general election vote for Apr. 4—is attracting the keen interest of political operatives from across the country and bringing in piles of cash to support the candidates.
In this battleground state, there is much at stake in the outcome to fill an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with the next court expected to hear cases on the highly contentious and emotional issue of abortion and also on legislative redistricting, voting law, and public employee collective bargaining and pension reform.
Decisions that the court hands down may influence voter interest in and turnout for the 2024 presidential election.
Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming, who worked in the administrations of Wisconsin GOP governors Tommy Thompson, Scott McCallum, and Scott Walker, and served as chief of staff to Wisconsin Assembly Speaker David Prosser, knows Wisconsin politics.
“I’ve been involved in government and politics in Madison and at the Capitol since the 1980s, and this election is one of the most consequential ever in Wisconsin,” said Schimming in a conversation with The Epoch Times.
“There are several cases of major consequence that could come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in which it may take jurisdiction of original action and settle law for Wisconsin.”
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, speaking to media outlet Urban Milwaukee about the money being spent in the election, said, “The previous record for a judicial race in the nation was $15 million. This is likely to cost much more, tens of millions of dollars.”
A Slim Conservative Majority
Over the past 10 years, conservatives have held a 4–3 majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court (SCOWIS).The race is to fill a seat that has opened with the decision of Justice Patience Roggensack, a reliable conservative vote, not to seek reelection.
Roggensack is finishing up her second consecutive 10-year term.
4 Candidates Running
Four candidates are vying for the SCOWIS seat—two conservatives and two liberals.Candidates for the court do not run aligned with a political party, even as their political leaning and ideology are well known.
The top two vote-getters in the primary move on to the general election.
Therefore, in theory, the fate of the next Wisconsin Supreme Court may be decided in the primary.
A Lot on the Line
Central to this Badger State election being so highly consequential is the gridlock between its executive and legislative branches.
Republicans presently hold a two-thirds majority, a supermajority, in the Senate and are in a position to gain a supermajority in the Assembly. If the GOP achieved a supermajority in the Assembly, it would hold the power to override the governor’s veto and introduce and pass almost any bill it wants.
As well, of urgent concern for the Democrats, with Wisconsin so close to a GOP veto-proof majority, is that Republicans already control most of the nation’s state houses.
Democrats allege that the grip the GOP holds on the legislature, in a solidly purple state where voters’ ranks are fairly evenly split in Democratic and Republican party affiliation, is owed to extreme partisan gerrymandering that the GOP-controlled legislature was able to put through.
The next court will almost certainly hear a challenge to the state’s near-total ban on abortion, passed in 1849, and which went back into effect with the Supreme Court’s striking down Roe v. Wade; a revisiting of Act 10, the 2011 law stewarded by Gov. Walker that limited the ability of public employees to collectively bargain and required them to pay more into their pensions and healthcare plans.
As well, with Democrats not inclined to abandon their charge that the GOP engaged in an overly partisan drawing of the legislative map, the chances are high that the court will hear a redistricting case.
Wounds are still raw from the 2020 contest of wills in which Gov. Evers vetoed the legislature’s redistricting map and then used an executive order to create his own commission, which drew a map that went under review at the SCOWIS and was then forwarded to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS said it would not hear the case, and sent it back to the Wisconsin court.
Candidate Backgrounds
On her campaign website, Judge Dorow states, “First and foremost, I am a judicial conservative who will not legislate from the bench” and that she was elected multiple terms to the Waukesha Supreme Court by “constituents who depend on me and look to me to uphold constitutional enforcement of laws.” She graduated from Marquette University and Regent College of Law.Justice Kelly is described, in a campaign statement, as a “judicial constitutionalist.” He was appointed in 2016 to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by then-Gov. Walker. He lost the seat in 2020 to Jill Karofsky. Kelly has experience as a litigator, a law clerk, and a special prosecutor. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Carroll College (now Carroll University), and his law degree from Regent University School of Law.
Judge Mitchell graduated from Morehouse College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He serves as Senior Pastor at Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Madison and as an adjunct professor at Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where he teaches “Race, Racism, and the Law” and “Foundational Principles of the Juvenile Justice System..”
Judge Protasiewicz is way out in front in fundraising. Indeed, she made a $700,000 media buy. A focus of the advertising is the judge declaring her support for pro-abortion policy.
Protasiewicz, who served as an assistant district attorney for more than 25 years, holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a law degree from Marquette University. After graduating from Marquette University, she worked as an adjunct law professor at the school.
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