The 2020 Milwaukee County Wisconsin Supreme Court Election: Democrat Sen. Janet Protasiewicz, former Wisconsin supreme court Justice Dan Kelly, and Wisconsin’s Senator Dan Evers

Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz won the hotly contested race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, according to a race call by The Associated Press, defeating former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly. The previous national record was set for a supreme court election.

The race shattered the previous national record for spending in a state Supreme Court race. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the previous record was set in a race for the Illinois Supreme Court in 2004. Nearly $29 million had been spent on political ads in the Wisconsin race according to the center. Another running tally by the Wisconsin political news site WisPolitics found total spending on the race had hit $45 million.

Should the court redraw the maps and give Democrats a better chance of winning races for the legislature, they hope they could finally push the state’s political trajectory to the left. The court could also potentially redraw Wisconsin’s congressional map, where Republicans currently hold six out of eight U.S House seats in an otherwise 50-50 state.

Evers was the first person elected governor in the Democrats’ wave. He was re-elected last year. Even though Ron Johnson was the Republican senator in 2022, he had lost his seat to Trump two years before. Kelly, who faced blowback for his role in the effort to hatch a fake electors scheme, was hurt by his false allegations of 2020 election fraud, which incensed Democrats, and also in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

Revisiting the maps that she has criticized could lead to new districts that are less favorable to Republicans.

The court has influenced Wisconsin elections in more than one way. The use of most ballot drop boxes was banned last year, and anyone can not return a ballot on another voter’s behalf. The outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin was determined by the court’s 4-3 decision, with conservative Brian Hagedorn joining the court’s three liberals.

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 state’s high court is expected to decide a lawsuit challenging an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions, which had been dormant for decades but snapped back into place with last year’s US Supreme Court ruling. Protasiewicz, Wisconsin Democrats and allied groups such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List all worked to frame the race as another referendum on abortion rights.

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

Wisconsin’s High Court: Election Day, Election Night, and the Protasiewicz Bench: Eric Holder’s State Attorney General Eric Holder

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.

Campaigning is expected to continue into Election Day, with spending tripling an old national record. It is from out-of-state sources that it now exceeds an estimated $45 million.

“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.

At the event in which he spoke, Holder told a reporter that he doesn’t know if Protasiewicz would rule from the bench 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.”

The state’s 1849 law took effect last summer after the US Supreme Court ruled that abortion is a right. 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-

On the Legacy of Sarah Protasiewicz, a Lutheran pastor in the Wisconsin House of Representatives, and a Devotion to the State Senate

Her aides say that Protasiewicz has been sick for the past few days. According to Kelly’s campaign, he made more than 20 stops over the last four days, including Sunday afternoon at the West Allis Republican headquarters.

“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.”

Dennis Hipenbecker is a Lutheran pastor. He sees Kelly as a very moral person, though he doesn’t know everything about him. Hipenbecker said he believes Kelly would rule against expanding abortion rights in the state, something he said is vital.

The late campaigning is due to the fact that a lot of people in the state won’t bother with 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.

As Protasiewicz approached the stage for her victory speech, the crowd at the Saint Kate hotel in downtown Milwaukee erupted, while some of her closest supporters danced on stage.

“Our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected,” Protasiewicz said. “And while there is still work to be done, tonight we celebrate this historic victory that has obviously reignited hope in so many of us.

Dan Kelly: What Do Democrats Really Want to Learn from Dan Protasiewicz During and After the Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office?

After a 25-year stint as a prosecutor in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, Protasiewicz became a judge in 2000, and has been there ever since.

She was unafraid to speak her mind on her politics when it came to 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.

Kelly had harsh words for Protasiewicz in his concession speech, 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 his former governor, 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. When Kelly lost his first election in 2020, he returned to private practice, where he had worked for the Republican Party.

The biggest financial backers of Kelly were the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and a group called Fair Courts America. 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 bulk of that money came in transfers from the state Democratic Party.

The term of office for Protasiewski will last until 2033. The next chance for conservatives to flip the court will be in twenty five years.

There has been a lot of anger about the person. Fear for our democracy remains. Dan Kelly is a candidate that voters are alarmed by. And if this race is an early bellwether – we can safely say that Republicans didn’t learn their lesson in 2022,” said Sarah Dohl, the chief campaigns officer for Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group.

Last year, the Democrats capitalized on a broad backlash to the US Supreme court’s overturn of abortion law and a base galvanized by the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency.

In the general election, Trump defeated Clinton by less than 25,000 votes, shattering the perception of a “blue wall” in the Upper Midwest.

“Everything from gerrymandering to drop boxes to Act 10 may be revisited to women’s right to choose,” Protasiewicz told Wisconsin Radio Network in February. (Act 10 eliminated collective bargaining for most public sector employees.)

With another presidential election coming up, her willingness to consider attempts to reverse voting laws or regulations could have national implications.