WISCONSIN'S HIGH-STAKES SUPREME COURT RACE.

• Date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Conniff, Ruth

On the last Saturday in February, just after a winter storm dumped freezing rain, snow, and ice across the Midwest, progressives and Democrats gathered at a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin, at 9 a.m. for an "ice cream for breakfast" fundraiser for state supreme court candidate Janet Protasiewicz.

If serving ice cream to Wisconsinites on a cold February morning seems like an odd choice, it didn't discourage anyone in the standing-room-only crowd. In a way, it was an appropriate coals-to-Newcastle metaphor for an event that aimed to raise money for the candidate who has already collected more cash than any other candidate in the history of Wisconsin Supreme Court elections.

Before she won the February 21 primary election, Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County circuit court judge, raised a record-breaking $2.2 million--much of it from out of state. But the race is about to get even more expensive. After crushing her three opponents, garnering 46 percent of the vote, Protasiewicz now faces conservative former state supreme court justice Daniel Kelly, who finished second with 24 percent. Massive spending is pouring into the race from both sides.

During the primary, outside groups spent $493,250 on advertising to support Protasiewicz. More than five times that--$2.59 million--went to support Kelly. A political action committee supported by GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, Fair Courts America, has pledged to spend millions of dollars to support Kelly in the April 4 general election.

The race, which The New York Times dubbed "arguably the most important election in America in 2023," could shift the ideological balance of the court, just before it is likely to hear cases challenging Wisconsin's draconian 1849 abortion ban and its gerrymandered voting map.

In this fraught political environment, in a purple state perpetually teetering on the tipping point between polarized political forces, the nominally nonpartisan supreme court race has become an openly partisan free-for-all. The candidates are each backed by a political party and opposing interest groups.

Kelly has condemned Protasiewicz for openly stating that she supports abortion rights and for describing the Republican legislature's gerrymandered political map as "rigged."

"Politics is poison to the work of the court," Kelly has proclaimed. But Kelly himself is hardly a nonpartisan actor. He ran his last campaign out of the Wisconsin Republican Party's headquarters. He represented legislative Republicans in...