Democrats won the state’s open supreme court seat in an off-year election in Wisconsin, giving liberals control of the court for the first time in 15 years.
According to The Associated Press, Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly in the hotly contested race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The amount spent on the campaign broke the previous national record for a state supreme court election.
Protasiewicz’s victory comes at a critical juncture for the court and the Democratic voters who elected her. With a liberal majority, the justices are almost certain to hear a challenge to Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War abortion ban, and they’re also likely to consider a lawsuit that could overturn Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative maps.
Unless something unexpected happens, the victory also ensures that liberals will have a majority on the court ahead of next year’s presidential election, when Wisconsin, the perennial swing state, is expected to play a key role in the race for the White House. If election-related lawsuits are filed in state court, Protasiewicz will be one of the seven justices who will have the final say.
Protasiewicz’s victory comes at a critical juncture for the court and the Democratic voters who elected her. With a liberal majority, the justices are almost certain to hear a challenge to Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War abortion ban, and they’re also likely to consider a lawsuit that could overturn Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative maps.
Unless something unexpected happens, the victory also ensures that liberals will have a majority on the court ahead of next year’s presidential election, when Wisconsin, the perennial swing state, is expected to play a key role in the race for the White House. If election-related lawsuits are filed in state court, one of the seven justices, Protasiewicz, will have the final say.
If the court redraws the maps and gives Democrats a better chance of winning legislative races, they hope to finally shift the state’s political trajectory to the left. The court could also redraw Wisconsin’s congressional map, where Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight U.S. House seats in an otherwise evenly divided state.
Protasiewicz grew up on Milwaukee’s south side and spent 25 years as a prosecutor in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office before becoming a judge for the majority of the last decade.
While she never promised to rule on Supreme Court cases, Protasiewicz was particularly candid about her political views during the campaign. On abortion, she stated that she believes women have the right to choose. She called the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps “rigged” when it came to redistricting.
Her campaign also relied heavily on financial support from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, so much so that Protasiewicz has promised to recuse herself from cases involving the state party once she takes office.
Her campaign also relied heavily on financial support from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, so much so that Protasiewicz has promised to recuse herself from cases involving the state party once she takes office.
Kelly downplayed his political views throughout the campaign, but he brought a long Republican resume to the race. In 2016, he was appointed to the court by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Kelly worked as an attorney for the majority of his career. He successfully defended Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative maps in federal court in 2012. After losing his first election in 2020, Kelly returned to private practise, where he represented both the state and national Republican parties.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and a group called Fair Courts America, which is funded by GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, were among Kelly’s biggest financial backers. They spent more than $10 million on ads criticising Protasiewicz’s sentences as a judge in Milwaukee County.
The race broke the previous national record for the most money spent on a state Supreme Court race. The previous record of $15.2 million was set in a 2004 race for the Illinois Supreme Court, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. According to the center’s tracking, nearly $29 million in political ads were spent in Wisconsin’s race. Another running tally, this time by the Wisconsin political news site WisPolitics, revealed that total spending on the race had reached $45 million.
Protasiewicz will take office on August 1 and will serve until 2033. Unless something unexpected happens, conservatives will have another chance to reclaim the Supreme Court in 2025.
