Control of the state Supreme Court will be decided in a most consequential election

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2024 Election Is Going To Hell: The Case for a Change in Voting Rules by the Supreme Court

Some advocates for Protasiewicz say they also worry about conservative control of the court when it comes to setting voting rules for the 2024 presidential election in Wisconsin and if Republicans would challenge the 2024 results. Conservatives tried to get involved in the 2020 race, but were unsuccessful. There may be more lawsuits involving the 2024 race.

The race shattered the previous national record for spending in a state Supreme Court race. The Brennan Center for Justice said that the old record was set in a 2004 race for the Illinois Supreme Court. More than $29 million has been spent on political ads in the Wisconsin race. Another running tally by the Wisconsin political news site WisPolitics found total spending on the race had hit $45 million.

They hope that if the court changes the maps they can push the state’s political trajectory to the left. The map of Wisconsin’s congress could possibly be changed due to the court’s judgement. Republicans currently hold six out of eight U.S house seats, but it’s in a divided state.

Walker lost his bid for a third term. 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 Republicans have a 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.

In other ways the court has shaped Wisconsin elections. It banned the use of most drop boxes and ruled that people would not be able to 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.

With the election set for Tuesday and the court likely to be asked to weigh in again on election rules, including the state’s voter identification law, there could be another round of legal challenges after that.

But the most immediate battle likely to reach the justices as early as this fall is over Wisconsin’s 1849 law that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances.

“As a woman, I think the 1849 abortion ban is absolutely ridiculous,” said Alicia Halvensleben at the Waukesha event with Holder for Protasiewicz. I am concerned about what will happen if this comes before the court and we have Dan Kelly on the court.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court: What will it be? Eric Holder tells a crowd at a Waukesha suburb on Tuesday, Aug. 27

The most expensive state supreme court race in the United States will be decided on Tuesday as voters decide which justice to appoint to the Wisconsin high court.

Spending tripling of an old national record is predicted to continue into Election Day. It is now estimated to be more than $45 million, from out-of-state sources.

“I will tell you this. This is the most important election in this country in 2023,” said former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Saturday to get-out-the-vote volunteers in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha.

After his comments at the event, he told a reporter that he didn’t know how Protasiewicz would rule on certain issues. He said that he could tell you how her opponent would vote on a case, particularly when it came to questions of voting and gerrymander.

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-

During the late campaign of General Relativity, Wisconsin Governor Lisa Protasiewicz spoke publicly on “We’re the servants, not the bosses”

According to her aides, Protasiewicz has been sick for a few days. 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 bosses, and we’re the servants,” Kelly began, “the first thing I learned a long, long time ago, is that servants don’t tell the bosses what to do.”

Local Lutheran pastor Dennis Hipenbecker was in the audience. He said he sees Kelly as “very moral,” even though we don’t know everything about a person. Hipenbecker said he believed Kelly would veto expanding abortion rights in the state.

There are many reasons for the late campaigning but one is that people who vote in presidential elections in Wisconsin don’t care about supreme court races. State Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming told the West Allis crowd to reach out to 10 people they know and convince them to vote.

Some of her closest supporters danced on the stage in the Saint Kate hotel as Protasiewicz approached the stage for her victory speech.

“Our state is moving in a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected”, Protasiewicz said. “Tonight we celebrate the historic victory that has obviously reignited hope in so many of us, we have still much more work to be done.”

Campaigning for the Restoration of Wisconsin’s Legislative Maps, with a Special Special Advisor, Eriem Protasiewicz

After graduating from high school, Protasiewicz joined the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, working there for 25 years before becoming a judge.

Protasiewicz was unafraid to discuss her political views during the campaign, even though she never promised to rule one way or another on cases before the Supreme Court. On the issue of abortion, she said she believed women have a right to choose. When it came to redistricting, she called the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps “rigged.”

Her campaign also relied more than any in history on the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s financial support, so much so that Protasiewicz vowed to recuse herself from cases involving the state party once she takes office.

In his concession speech to supporters in Green Lake, Wis., Kelly had sharp words for Protasiewicz, saying she had “demeaned the judiciary” with her campaign.

Throughout the campaign, Kelly downplayed his political views, but he brought a long Republican resume to the race. He was appointed to the court by former Gov. Scott Walker. Most of Kelly’s career was spent as an attorney. In 2012, he defended Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative maps in federal court. In 2020, after Kelly lost his first election, he returned to private practice, where his clients included both the state and national Republican parties.

Kelly’s biggest financial backers included Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and a group called Fair Courts America, which is funded by GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein. Together, they spent more than $10 million on ads criticizing sentences handed down by Protasiewicz as a judge in Milwaukee County.

While money from Kelly and conservative groups came in heavy during the closing weeks of the campaign, Protasiewicz was able to counter with a fundraising haul that was previously unheard of in a judicial race, raising more than $14 million this year. The majority of the money came from the state Democratic Party.

Protasiewicz will take office on Aug. 1 for a term that runs until 2033. Barring the unexpected, the next chance conservatives have to flip the court back will be in 2025.