An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)

It’s unlikely the candidates for state Superintendent will debate ahead of the April 1 election with incumbent Jill Underly turning down three opportunities and education consultant Brittany Kinser declining one. 

The race for the nonpartisan state superintendent will appear on voters’ ballots alongside the high-profile state Supreme Court race. While the race is not as high profile as the campaign for Supreme Court, the results will be consequential for education in Wisconsin. The winner will be responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts and leading the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) — an agency whose responsibilities include administering state and federal funds, licensing teachers, developing educational curriculum and state assessments and advocating for public education.

Underly, who is running for her second term in office, is running on a platform of advocating for the state’s public schools and has the support and financial backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Kinser, who is running on a platform of improving reading and math education, is a school choice advocate and has the backing of Republicans, with financial support from the Republican Party of Wisconsin and backing from billionaire Republican mega-donors.

Underly, after missing a Wispolitics forum ahead of the primary, told the Examiner that February was a busy month and she would be open to attending a forum in March before the primary. The day of the Wispolitics meeting Underly said that she had to attend a meeting of the UW Board of Regents and also attended a press conference about federal payments not going out to Head Start programs. 

“March is not as busy,” Underly said at the time. “I have other meetings and things that are standard, but like, February is just unreasonable… You’re traveling so much and you’ve got a lot of obligations, so it’s hard right now, so yes, you know, next month, if there are forums and I don’t have a standing conflict.”

Since the primary, Underly has declined three debate opportunities. 

The Milwaukee Press Club along with WisPolitics and the Rotary Club of Milwaukee will host an event March 25, and said it invited both candidates to participate but Underly’s campaign spokesperson said she was unavailable. 

Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education will host an event with Kinser on Thursday. Kevin Conway, Associate Director of University Communication, said the center extended invitations to both candidates for a general election debate ahead of the February primary. 

“While all candidates agreed in concept, the Lubar Center was subsequently unable to confirm a program time with the Underly campaign,” Conway said. “Given the circumstances, the Lubar Center pivoted to offering “Get to Know” programs to both candidates, and the Kinser campaign accepted.”

WISN-12 had invited both candidates a chance to debate on UpFront, the channel’s Sunday public affairs program. 

“So far, we cannot get both candidates to agree on a date,” WISN 12 News Director Matt Sinn said in an email.

Underly said in a statement to the Examiner that her job as superintendent “requires every minute I can give it, which means making choices which matter the most for our kids’ future, and advocating on their behalf every single day.” 

Underly has agreed to a forum being hosted by the Wisconsin Public Education Network, a nonpartisan public education advocacy group, and the NAACP. 

“Unfortunately the dates did not work for other debates, but we were able to agree to the Wisconsin Public Education Network forum, which is the forum for the education community,” she said. 

WPEN Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane said WPEN had communicated with all of the candidates about a general election forum before the primary and the NAACP followed up with Kinser after the primary. 

Kinser’s campaign ended up declining.

DuBois Bourenane told the Examiner that the group is hoping Kinser will reconsider, noting that they want to have a “fair and friendly” conversation with the candidates to talk about their “vision for Wisconsin kids.” She said the League of Women Voters was also supposed to cohost the event, but the group doesn’t sponsor events where only one candidate participates. 

“It’s unfortunate that voters aren’t going to have an opportunity to hear from the candidates directly,” DuBois Bourenane said. “We hope Ms. Kinser will reconsider… We would love to have her at the event, and as we said in our email, make every effort to make sure that it’s fair and that the questions reflect the concerns that are most pressing to Wisconsin kids.”

Underly said that Kinser’s decision to decline “speaks volumes that after working for years to defund public schools she doesn’t want to show up and answer questions from public school advocates.”

Kinser’s campaign noted Underly declined each forum being hosted by members of the press, and accused Underly of “hiding.” 

“Wisconsinites deserve to hear from the candidates who will be responsible for our children’s future. Brittany Kinser has, when possible, made herself available to any organization, group, or voter who wants to learn more about her plans to restore high standards so every student can read, write, and do math well,” the campaign stated, adding that Kinser would continue meeting with voters ahead of Election Day.

Supreme Court candidates Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel debate at Marquette Law School Wednesday evening, March 12. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Judges Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel accused one another of partisanship while clashing over issues including abortion, crime and Act 10 at the Marquette University Law School Wednesday evening. It was the only debate between the two candidates in the race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 

Throughout the campaign that will determine the ideological sway of the Court, each candidate has taken aim at the other’s history of political activity and the support both have received from billionaire allies of the Democratic and Republican parties. At the debate, both candidates continued those accusations in exchanges that Crawford said in a post-debate news conference amounted to the “fireworks that are inevitable when you put two lawyers in a room and ask them tough questions.” 

Crawford, a Dane County judge who was endorsed by the state Democratic party, has been criticized for criminal sentences she’s given that Schimel and Republicans have claimed were too lenient on sex offenders. They have also singled out money her campaign has received from figures including George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and highlighted her work as a private attorney representing Planned Parenthood and in cases challenging the state’s voter ID law and Act 10 — the controversial law that ended collective bargaining rights for most public employees. 

Schimel, a Waukesha County judge running with the support of  the state Republican party, has been attacked over the millions of dollars in outside support his campaign has received from Elon Musk as well as statements he’s made in support of President Donald Trump. He has also been criticized for his record as a Republican attorney general — particularly regarding his office’s effort to resolve a backlog of untested sexual assault kits — and statements he’s made repeatedly on the campaign trail in  support for the state’s 1849 law that has been interpreted as banning abortion access. 

At one point, in a remark that Crawford said was a “slip of the tongue,” she referred to Musk as “Elon Schimel.” 

During the debate, one of the moderators, WISN’s Gerron Jordan, asked “why should voters trust or believe either one of you” when they claim to be impartial. 

Schimel said he doesn’t control the money outside groups have pumped into the race. Crawford said she’s “never promised anything” to donors — a statement Schimel responded to by saying “that’s garbage.” 

Several times, Crawford accused Schimel of saying different things to broader audiences than to audiences made up of his political allies. She called attention to reporting by the Washington Post that Schimel said Trump was “screwed over” by the Supreme Court in its decisions regarding the 2020 election, and reporting by the Wisconsin Examiner that he had told a group of canvassers he’d be a “support network” for Trump. 

“He is not impartial, and he says different things in front of a broad audience like this, where he knows it’s going to be televised, than he’ll say when he’s talking to his political allies,” she said. “He is not trustworthy.” 

On the campaign trail, access to abortion has been one of the most prominent issues. The Court is currently considering a lawsuit that would have the state’s 1849 law declared invalid, while another lawsuit is pending in the lower courts asking if the state’s Constitution grants a right to abortion access. 

Schimel has said he personally opposes abortion, that both of his daughters are adopted and he believes the 1849 statute is a “valid law.” In the debate he repeated what he’s said during the campaign on the issue — that it should be up to the state’s voters. Wisconsin doesn’t allow voters to influence state law through a referendum process. 

“As a judge, no judge or justice should be deciding this issue for the voters of Wisconsin,” he said. “This issue belongs in their hands. Should it be decided by the voters, or should it be decided by four justices on the majority on the Court? And if four justices in the majority on the court can make that decision for the voters, that decision can flip back and forth every time the majority flips. We have to let the voters make this decision. I’ve been clear on that.” 

Crawford accused Schimel of “pre-judging” the issue of abortion. She said she wouldn’t weigh in on a potential case but that she trusts women to make their own health care decisions. 

“My 23-year-old daughter doesn’t have the same rights that I did,” she said. “And what I want for her and what I want for Judge Schimel’s daughters is the same: If they are pregnant and something goes terribly wrong in their pregnancy, I don’t want them to lie bleeding on a hospital bed while their doctors are huddled in another room trying to decide if they’re close enough to death before they can deliver health care services to them.” 

One of the most heated portions of the debate came during a section on crime. Both candidates’ campaigns have aired ads accusing the other of being too soft on crime when sentencing people in their circuit courts. While the Supreme Court hears appeals of criminal cases, it has little to do with handling crime at the street level. 

Schimel accused Crawford of lying about being a prosecutor because she worked as a prosecutor at the state level for the Department of Justice while he worked as a “front-line prosecutor” in Waukesha County. 

“I was the guy that got called at 3 a.m. to go to the crime scene, I was the guy who worked with law enforcement to build that case from the crime scene all the way to conviction, I was the shoulder that the crime victims cried on time and time again,” he said. “My opponent never did that.”

Crawford responded by saying the work she did for the DOJ is “most relevant” to prepare someone for a job on the Supreme Court. Taking appeals all the way to the Court, she said, gave her experience with “cases that involve the development of the law and the kinds of legal arguments that you have to consider when you’re making decisions that are going to involve statewide precedent that every prosecutor in the state will be bound by.” 

After the debate, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley and former Republican Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch held a news conference stating that the two candidates live in “separate realities.” Bradley and Kleefisch accused Crawford of vying to be a part of an “activist” liberal majority. 

“We went from a court that objectively and impartially evaluated every case that was before it to a court that now, as Judge Schimel mentioned, is pursuing a political agenda,” said Bradley, who has frequently accused the Court’s liberal majority of acting politically in her published opinions. 

While the two conservatives held their news conference, the Court’s four liberal justices and Crawford watched from the perimeter, occasionally shaking their heads about the accusations against them. In a news conference of her own, with the four Justices standing behind her, Crawford said Schimel has worked during his career to take rights away from Wisconsinites. 

“I thought it was a great opportunity for me to share with voters information about my experience, my values and what kind of justice I’ll be on the state Supreme Court,” she said. “And also to point out the contrast with my opponent, who has a long career as an extreme partisan politician working to take rights away from people, I think it’s important for voters to know that.” 

Early voting in the election begins March 18. Election Day is April 1.