Conservatives have had an advantage in Wisconsin for a long time
The Wisconsin High Court Elections are Lively and Budgeted: A Critical Battle for the Conservative-Legative-Governorship Interaction
Conservatives have a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin high court. But the retirement of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack has given liberals an opening to retake control for at least the next two years, and with it fundamentally shift the political landscape in a state that has been ensnared in political conflict for more than a decade. The race could also effectively decide how the court will rule on legal challenges to Wisconsin’s 1849 law banning abortion – which took effect after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
Wisconsin is one of 14 states that directly elect their Supreme Court justices, and winners get 10-year terms. The races are nominally nonpartisan, but political parties leave little doubt as to which candidates they support. Spending in this year’s race – which reached $28.8 million as of March 29, according to the Brennan Center – has far surpassed the previous record for spending on a state judicial contest: $15.4 million in a 2004 Illinois race.
The Republican control of Wisconsin began with the election of Gov. Scott Walker and continued with the passage of union- busting laws and legislative districts drawn to ensure GOP control, all of which were legalized by the state Supreme Court.
Walker lost the governor’s race to Tony Evers. But Evers has been hamstrung by the Republican-led legislature, with the conservative Supreme Court breaking ties on matters such as a 2022 ruling during the once-a-decade redistricting process in favor of using Republican-drawn legislative maps rather than ones submitted by Evers. The decision cemented Republicans’ solid majority in the state legislature.
If Protasiewicz wins, a legal challenge is expected to the state’s current legislative and congressional district maps. State legislative maps have been drawn to benefit Republicans since 2011.
The court’s influence on Wisconsin elections is not the only thing it has done. It prohibited the use of most ballot drop boxes last year, and no one could return a ballot in person for another voter. The court played a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin: Justices voted 4-3, with conservative Brian Hagedorn joining the court’s three liberals, to reject former President Donald Trump’s efforts to throw out ballots in Democratic-leaning counties.
Tuesday’s election will set the stage for the 2024 presidential race, with the court likely to be asked to weigh in again on election rules, including the state’s voter identification law, and potentially sort through another round of legal challenges afterward.
The fight over the 1849 Wisconsin law that banned abortion in most circumstances is likely to reach the justices as early as this fall.
“As a woman, I don’t think the 1849 abortion ban is necessary,” Halvensleben said at the event. I’m worried about what’s going to happen if this comes before the court and we have Dan Kelly on the court.
Wisconsin’s High Court: Who’s Waiting for Election Day? — Eric Holder and his State Attorney General Eric Holder at Waukesha
That could all change as voters Tuesday decide one seat on Wisconsin’s high court in the most expensive state supreme court race in United States history.
Spending tripling the old national record is expected to continue into Election Day. It now tops an estimated $45 million, mostly from out-of-state sources.
“I will tell you this. Eric Holder, a former Attorney General of the US, made a special appearance in Milwaukee to get people to vote in the upcoming election.
At the Waukesha event, Holder told a reporter that he doesn’t know how Protasiewicz would rule on certain issues. “I do know that she’s a fair, competent, impartial judge,” he said, “and I can tell you how her opponent would vote on a particular case, especially when it comes to questions of voting and gerrymandering.”
Democrats also see an opening to overturn an 1849 state law that took effect last summer after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawsuit filed by Democrats last year challenging the old law will be argued at the circuit court level in May and could go to the state court within months.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167814397/tuesday-election-wisconsin-supreme-court-
The late campaign of D. C. Kelly at the Milwaukee county supreme court: “The servants don’t tell the bosses what to do”
Protasiewicz has not been on the campaign trail in a while, according to her aides. Kelly’s campaign says he’s made more than 20 stops over the last four days, including Sunday afternoon at Milwaukee County Republican headquarters in West Allis.
“You’re the boss, and we’re the servants,” Kelly said, “the first thing I learned is that servants don’t tell the bosses what to do.”
Dennis Hipenbecker is a Lutheran pastor. He sees Kelly as “very moral” despite the fact that we don’t know everything about a person. Hipenbecker said he believes Kelly would rule against expanding abortion rights in the state, something he said is vital.
One reason for all the late campaigning is that hundreds of thousands of people who vote in presidential elections in Wisconsin don’t bother with supreme court races. State Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said to the West Allis crowd to try and get10 people to vote.
