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2024 United States primary elections

Big spending expected in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

News RoomBy 13 Mins Read

The 2024 presidential election is barely in the rearview mirror and already all eyes in Wisconsin’s political world have shifted to the April election for state Supreme Court, in which liberals are looking to maintain their hold on the majority and conservatives are looking to reclaim it.

With the court expected to issue rulings on cases that could determine access to abortion and the future of Act 10, former Gov. Scott Walker’s signature law that gutted public sector collective bargaining in Wisconsin, much is on the line in the race to replace outgoing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.

The election also marks the first statewide vote in notoriously purple Wisconsin since former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November, setting the stage for another statewide election that’s expected to draw nationwide attention, and dollars, on April 1.

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“We’re tracking at such a rate where I would be willing to bet the house that in the next Supreme Court race we should be seeing numbers projected somewhere around $70 million, maybe $80 million combined when it’s all said and done,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks campaign spending in the state.

Ramos said the state Supreme Court election will serve as a “political litmus test” to see whether Republicans maintain the momentum they found in November or if Democrats claim a rebound following Harris’ loss to Trump.

“I think we’re going to see all types of outside money get flooded into Wisconsin to see how this race is going to shake out because the ideological balance is back on the center stage in the state on the supreme court,” Ramos said.

Walsh Bradley announced earlier this year that she will not be seeking another 10-year term next year after nearly 30 years on the state’s highest court.

The decision came just one year after fellow liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz won a hotly contested race for a seat on the court. Protasiewicz’s 2023 victory over conservative former Justice Dan Kelly gave liberals a narrow 4-3 majority on the court.

The race is believed to have been the most expensive judicial election in American history.

Former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel and liberal Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford are running for Walsh Bradley’s seat.

Crawford has been backed by all four current liberal justices on the court, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s administrative committee and the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

Schimel has been endorsed by Americans for Prosperity, the Milwaukee Police Association and more than 20 sheriffs across the state.

The election is scheduled for April 1. If at least two more candidates join the race, a primary will be held on Feb. 18. Candidates have until early January to file nomination papers.

Big money

Spending by outside groups on state Supreme Court races has ballooned over the years, climbing from a little over $27,000 in 2003 to more than $6 million spent by candidates and outside groups in the 2019 race and roughly $10 million spent in the 2020 election, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Those records were easily shattered last year when more than $51 million was spent by candidates and special interest groups leading up to Protasiewicz’s 2023 victory over Kelly.

Fundraising figures are just one component of a successful campaign or political party, but they can offer a glimpse into the campaign’s or party’s organization, donor base and overall support.

While the election is officially nonpartisan, political parties contribute millions of dollars and hundreds of workers to support their preferred candidates.

Ramos described big money in Wisconsin elections as “a steady problem” caused by the state’s “broken campaign finance system.”

“Both parties are taking advantage of it knowing that if they can outraise the other side they can oftentimes be able to win the election,” he said.

Campaign finance laws written by Legislative Republicans and signed in late 2015 by then-Gov. Scott Walker allow political parties to receive unlimited donations and make unlimited transfers of funds to candidates.

In an effort to reduce outside spending in Wisconsin elections, Ramos said his organization plans to make “a very big push” next year for campaign finance reform.

“A great start would be trying to do everything that we can to restore our campaign finance law system back to a pre-2015 posture,” he said.

What’s at stake

The election comes just as justices are likely to tackle a host of high-profile cases — although at least a few of those cases will probably be decided before the new justice takes the bench in August.

One of the most notable cases before the court challenges Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law, which was revived after Roe v. Wade was struck down two years ago and has been widely interpreted as a near-complete ban on abortion.

After Roe was struck down, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul asked a Dane County Circuit Court judge to declare the 1849 law applies only to feticide, not consensual abortions. Kaul argued the law conflicted with later, more permissive abortion laws and court decisions, including a 1994 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling — while Roe was still in effect — that found the law only applied to somebody killing a fetus by assaulting its mother.

Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper reached just such a conclusion last December. The case is now before the high court.

More recently, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jacob Frost earlier this month tossed out many components of Act 10. While the law has withstood several previous legal challenges, the latest lawsuit — brought by a handful of union groups — argued provisions of the law were unconstitutional because it treats some public safety workers differently from other public employees.

Frost’s decision has been temporarily paused while the state Legislature appeals it. But the high court will have the last word on it.

The court is also expected to rule on a Republican-backed lawsuit seeking to unseat Meagan Wolfe, the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s nonpartisan administrator. Wolfe has remained at her post even though her term expired more than a year ago. The lawsuit was filed last September, after the Republican-controlled Senate voted to fire Wolfe, even though the matter was not formally before senators because she hadn’t been reappointed by the six-member Wisconsin Elections Commission.

The Supreme Court will also rule on a GOP-backed lawsuit challenging what attorneys have called an “imaginative veto” Evers issued in July 2023 before signing the state’s current two-year spending plan that locked in K-12 school funding for the next 400 years.

Under the budget Evers signed, schools would be allowed to raise revenue by $325 per student per year until 2425. Given current public school enrollment levels, that’s a more than $260 million increase per year.

Although improbable — no Legislature can bind a future Legislature, and no other state law pretends to commit the state to do anything for centuries — the funding level is current law.

While discussing the lawsuit in October, even the court’s liberal justices called the veto “absurd” and “outrageous.”

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