MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) — A conservative bias on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has given Republicans victories in voting restrictions, rigged legislative districts and other high-stakes cases in recent years.
Voters now have the opportunity to shift that balance to the left, affecting abortion rights and perhaps the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in one of the country’s most divided political battlegrounds.
Two Conservatives and two Liberals will run for the seat of a resigning Conservative judiciary in Tuesday’s primary. The top two will qualify for the general elections on April 4th.
The eventual winner will determine whether the Conservatives retain control of the officially bipartisan Court or it transitions to liberal 4-3 control for at least the next two years. The court could have overturned President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory by one vote, and both major parties are bracing for another narrow lead in the 2024 contest.
“For many Americans, this is the moment to catch their breath after all the intensity of 2022,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party leader Ben Wikler. “But in Wisconsin this race is at least as important as all the battles of the last two years.”
The Supreme Court campaign could break national spending records if a Conservative and a Liberal make it through the primary, with issues like abortion, the fate of legislative plans, union rights and contesting election results at stake.
Four of Wisconsin’s last six presidential races have been decided by less than a percentage point, including Donald Trump’s win in 2016 and Biden’s win in 2020. In 2024, Democrats will seek re-election for Senator Tammy Baldwin and take possession of the Republicans six of the state’s eight congressional seats.
“The alarm went off,” Wikler said. “National Democrats, elected officials and civic groups can all see plainly that this race holds the key to the future not only of Wisconsin democracy but of American democracy at large.”
In addition to the court ruling over challenges to the 2024 election results, Republicans said laws they passed when they had full control of state government are in jeopardy. This includes a 2011 law signed by the government at the time. Scott Walker, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public employees, as well as legislative districts drawn by the GOP, a Voter ID Act, a ban on mail-in ballots, and a host of other measures.
“Rarely is there a race like this that has so much potential to overturn so many important issues and decisions of the past,” said Brandon Scholz, who led two campaigns for the conservative justice whose resignation established the race, and a former Dating Republican Wisconsin is the executive director of the party.
The court will likely decide whether the state’s law banning almost all abortion — enacted in 1849, a year after statehood — stays in effect and whether Democrats have the ability to reverse political cards issued by the Republicans who have increased the number of state legislature seats they consider to be a near overwhelming majority. A voting rights attorney has already pledged to file a lawsuit the day after the new judge takes office if a Liberal wins.
The contest is the latest example of officially bipartisan court races evolving into political battles as major litigation unfolds at the state level.
Unlike many other states, including neighboring Michigan, voters in Wisconsin do not have the ability to put initiatives on the ballot to repeal laws or make their own. Your only options are changes by the legislature, which has been under Republican control since 2011, or the courts.
Recent Supreme Court elections in other states show the impact that a tipping over of majority control can have.
In North Carolina, the new Republican majority earlier this month agreed to retry snap election and voter identification cases less than two months after the previous edition of the court, led by Democrats, made key statements against the GOP-controlled legislature.
The Conservatives running for the Wisconsin seat of retired Justice Patience Roggensack are former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly and Waukesha District Judge Jennifer Dorow. The Liberals are Milwaukee County District Judge Janet Protasiewicz and Dane County District Judge Everett Mitchell.
While the race is bipartisan and Wisconsin voters do not register by party, each of the candidates has taken clear conservative or liberal positions on some of the most important issues.
Protasiewicz has called the legislative maps drawn by the GOP “rigged” and made her support for abortion rights the focus of her television ad, which aired first in the race. The Wisconsin Republican Party has filed an ethics complaint against her, arguing that Protasiewicz preempted cases that might come before her. Your backers dismiss the action as a campaign stunt.
Mitchell, who would be the first black judge elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has also said current legislative plans are not fair and expressed his belief that women have the right to an abortion.
Both conservative candidates are backed by anti-abortion groups in the state.
Wisconsin’s 19th-century law prohibiting abortion went into effect after the US Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade had picked up. The state’s Democratic attorney general, with support from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, is suing to have it overturned. The case is expected to reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Dorow rose to national prominence after leading the trial of Darrell Brooks Jr., who was found guilty by a jury of murdering six people while driving his SUV through a 2021 Christmas parade.
Her first television commercial featured footage of the Waukesha parade murders as she presented her case as a hard crime candidate. Kelly was appointed to the court in 2016 but lost in 2020 when Democratic turnout in the presidential primary was high.
Dorow was active in local Republican Party politics. Kelly was endorsed by Trump during his unsuccessful tenure two years ago and has worked for both the state and national Republican parties for the past two years, including advising on Wisconsin’s plan to trick fake voters into casting ballots for Trump . Both Dorow and Kelly have spoken to GOP groups across the state during the primary campaign.
Expenditure on the race is expected to skyrocket after Tuesday’s primary and could eventually surpass the highest expenditure for a Wisconsin Supreme Court race — $10 million in 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice 15.2 million dollars in Illinois in 2004, the center says.
A week before Tuesday’s primary, about $3.5 million was spent on ads supporting the left-leaning candidates, while $3.4 million was spent supporting the Conservatives, according to AdImpact Politics, which tracks ads. Protasiewicz has raised nearly $1.9 million since joining last year, about $500,000 more than the campaigns of the other three candidates combined.
That level of spending creates “all kinds of problems” for court perceptions, said Matt Rothschild, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks state election spending.
“This completely contradicts our ideal of an independent, impartial judiciary,” he said.
Scott Bauer, The Associated Press
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