A Wisconsin appeals court judge who was an outspoken supporter of abortion rights in the state Legislature announced Tuesday that she is running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, taking on an incumbent conservative justice who sided with President Donald Trump in his failed attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, 57, becomes the first liberal candidate to enter the 2026 race.

The election next year won’t be for control of the court in the battleground state because liberals already hold a 4-3 majority. The race is for a seat held by conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, who said last month she is running for reelection.

Liberals won the majority of the court in 2024, and they will hold it until at least 2028 thanks to the victory in April by Democratic-backed Susan Crawford over a conservative candidate supported by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk spent at least $3 million on this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself, and groups he funds spent nearly $19 million more. But Musk said Tuesday he will be spending less on political campaigns in the future, which could mean less money for Bradley.

This year’s race broke spending records and became an early litmus test for Trump and Musk in the presidential swing state that Trump won in 2024 and 2016, but lost in 2020. Crawford won by 10 points, marking the 12th victory out of 15 races for a Democratic-backed statewide candidate in Wisconsin.

Liberals have a chance to expand their majority on the court next year to 5-2. If Bradley wins, the 4-3 liberal majority would be maintained.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Taylor said she is running “to make sure that people get a fair shake, that the judiciary remains independent and impartial and that people have confidence in the judiciary.”

She accused Bradley of prioritizing a right-wing agenda, noting her siding with Trump in his unsuccessful attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Bradley did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment. But Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming called Taylor a “radical” and said she will have to answer for her “extremely partisan record in the Legislature and on the bench.”

Taylor was an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, gun control and unions while representing Wisconsin’s liberal capital city Madison as a Democrat in the Legislature from 2011 to 2020. Before that, she worked as an attorney and as public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

Her past comments and positions will almost certainly be used by conservatives to argue that Taylor is biased and must not hear cases involving many topics including abortion, redistricting and union rights.

Taylor said her record as a judge over the past five years shows she can be objective.

“There is no room for partisanship in the judiciary,” she said.

Taylor said she would not step aside from a case just because it dealt with abortion, union rights or redistricting. Whether to recuse would be a case-by-case decision based on the facts, she said.

“There are cases where, if you do not feel you can be impartial, you need to recuse and I have done that,” Taylor said. “But whole topics? I would say no.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling within weeks in one challenge it heard last year to the state’s 1849 abortion ban law. It has agreed to hear another case brought by Planned Parenthood that seeks to make abortion a constitutional right, but has yet to schedule a date for oral arguments. That case most likely will be heard before the winner of next year’s election takes the seat in August 2026.

Taylor was outspoken in opposition to then-Gov. Scott Walker’s signature law, known as Act 10, that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers. A Dane County circuit judge struck down most of the law as unconstitutional in December, and the Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court faces a number of other high-profile cases, including a pair filed earlier this month seeking to overturn the state’s Republican-drawn congressional maps.

Taylor was appointed to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020 by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. She won election to the state appeals court in 2023.

Bradley, the incumbent, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Walker in 2015 and won election to a full term in 2016.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Judge Chris Taylor, who as legislator fought for abortion rights, running for Wisconsin Supreme Court is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor in her Dane County chambers. | Photo courtesy Chris for Justice campaign

Appeals court judge and former Democratic state Assembly member Chris Taylor announced Tuesday she’s running for a seat on the state Supreme Court in next year’s spring election. 

Taylor, who was elected to the Court of Appeals in 2023, will run against conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley in a race that will decide if liberals expand their majority on the Court. 

The two previous state Supreme Court elections, which consolidated the current 4-3 liberal majority, broke national spending records for judicial races. While the stakes won’t be as high in next year’s race, Bradley has been a prominent supporter of conservative causes since she was appointed to the Court by Gov. Scott Walker in 2015. 

Bradley sided with President Donald Trump in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has been a vocal member of the right-wing Federalist Society. 

The election takes place just seven months before the midterm elections when statewide offices including governor and attorney general, as well as control of the Legislature, will be up for grabs — giving the state a view of the voting public’s mood before November. 

Taylor previously worked as Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s public policy director and served in the Assembly from 2013 until she was appointed to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020. 

“As an attorney, public servant, and now as a judge, I’ve always been committed to making sure everyone is able to access our justice system,” Taylor said in a statement. “The law is a powerful tool for protecting Wisconsinites, holding people accountable, and making our state stronger.” 

“Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court must be fair, independent, and impartial,” Taylor said. “Justice Rebecca Bradley has proven that she’s more interested in pushing her own right-wing political agenda than protecting Wisconsinites’ rights and freedoms. Extremism and partisanship have no place on our state’s highest court. Everyone who comes before the court deserves to be heard, respected, and treated equally – that’s exactly what I’ll do as a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice.”

While Taylor has been elected to office six times, she has only faced a Republican opponent once. She ran unopposed for her Madison-area Assembly seat in 2012, 2014 and 2018. When she had an opponent in 2016, she won with 83% of the vote. She also ran unopposed for re-election to the Dane County Court in 2021 and for her seat on the District IV Court of Appeals in 2023. 

In a statement, Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming noted that she’s never had to win the votes of people outside of heavily Democratic Dane County.

“Chris Taylor’s extreme partisan record has never been on full display outside of Dane County,” Schimming said. “After ‘liberal express lane’ elections in Dane County and an appointment from Tony Evers, Radical Democrat Chris Taylor will now have to answer for her extremely partisan record in the Legislature and on the bench.”

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is pushing a fix to a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that hampered the public’s ability to obtain attorney fees in certain public records lawsuits against public officials — but the top Assembly Republican remains noncommittal about the bill.

The case, Friends of Frame Park v. City of Waukesha, involved a public records dispute between the city and a citizen group. Waukesha was working to bring a semi-professional baseball team to town. A group of concerned residents, Friends of Frame Park, submitted a public records request to the city seeking copies of any agreements the city had reached with the team’s owners or the semi-professional league. 

The city partially denied the request and refused to produce a copy of a draft contract. Friends of Frame Park hired an attorney and sued. A day after the lawsuit was filed, and before the local circuit court took action, the city produced a copy of the draft contract.

The case eventually worked its way to the state Supreme Court, which determined that Friends of Frame Park was not entitled to attorney fees because it technically had not prevailed in court — the group received the record without action from the circuit court.

The ruling “actually incentivizes public officials to illegally withhold records because it forces requestors to incur legal costs that may never be recovered,” said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, during a public hearing about the bill.

Max Lenz, an attorney representing the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, said the state Supreme Court ruling incentivizes public officials to “effectively dare the public to sue.” 

“The Supreme Court’s ruling in Friends of Frame Park flipped the public records law presumption of openness on its head,” he said.

The legislation, spearheaded by state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, would supersede the high court’s ruling and allow a requestor to obtain attorney fees if a judge determines that the filing of a lawsuit “was a substantial factor contributing to that voluntary or unilateral release” of records, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. 

The bill has garnered support from an unusual coalition of organizations. Seven groups, some of which frequently lobby, have registered in support of the bill, including the liberal ACLU of Wisconsin and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

A similar version of the bill was approved by the state Senate last session but did not receive a vote in the Assembly. The legislation was approved by the state Senate last week.

The legislation’s path forward remains unclear. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters recently that “our caucus has never talked about it.”

“It’s certainly something we could discuss, but we don’t have a position on it at this time,” Vos added.

Are you interested in learning more about public records? Here’s a primer on what types of records should be accessible to you — and how to request them.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Top Republican noncommittal on bipartisan fix to Wisconsin public records access problem is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy, 

The more than $100 million spent on this spring’s Supreme Court election in Wisconsin set a new national record for spending on a state judicial race. The figure almost doubles the previous record of $51 million, which donors poured into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in 2023. 

“The spending in this race is an indication of just how dominant state high courts have become in the biggest political fights playing out today,” Douglas Keith, a senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Judiciary Program, told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). He pointed to the “growing recognition” of the significance of state courts in ruling on both challenges to election laws and abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. 

The record spending on the 2025 Wisconsin race, the pathways the money traveled and the outsized influence of a few major donors raise questions about the future and fairness of judicial elections in Wisconsin and beyond. 

Outside spending

The campaign for liberal candidate Susan Crawford — who ultimately won the election by 10 points — raised more than $28.3 million, while her conservative counterpart Brad Schimel pulled in over $15.1 million in campaign funding, according to a CMD analysis of Wisconsin Ethics Commission filings. 

Special interest and ideological political action committees (PACs) accounted for the majority of the spending, dropping almost $57 million on both the liberal and conservative candidates. Thirteen of those outside groups spent more than $1 million each (and in many cases, well over $1 million) on the race, for a total of $48.8 million — more than the combined total raised by the two campaigns. 

“Big money has ruined us,” Janine Geske, a retired Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, told CMD. “It distresses me. It just goes to the heart of the independence of the judiciary.” 

Several of the highest spending groups are linked to just a small number of individuals. Billionaire Charles Koch’s astroturf operation Americans for Prosperity spent more than $3.3 million, while shipping giant Richard Uihlein’s Fair Courts America super PAC spent over $4.4 million. 

Few backers drew more attention than Trump’s top campaign donor Elon Musk, who funneled nearly $18.7 million into the race to boost Schimel through his America PAC and the Building America’s Future PAC, a group he has reportedly funded in part since 2022.

“The Musk involvement helped politicize [and polarize] the race,” Charles Franklin, professor of law and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, told CMD. “That was a brand new element.” 

There was a strong turnout in the April election, with 51% of Wisconsin’s eligible voters casting ballots — remarkably high for an election in which the state Supreme Court was the highest office on the ballot. 

“Voter turnout is up because the race is important, but it’s also up because so much money is being poured into it,” Franklin said, noting a 15-year rise in turnout in the state’s elections for its highest court. 

Political party loophole

Although Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are officially nonpartisan, the state’s Republican and Democratic parties played major roles. “It’s been so obviously a de facto partisan race for several cycles,” said Franklin, who also highlighted the significance of endorsements from President Trump and former President Obama in the election. 

The maximum amount that can be legally given to the campaign committee of a candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is $20,000. However, individuals can make unlimited contributions to a political party. Some donors use this as a legal loophole to funnel money to judicial candidates by first giving money to the state party, which then transfers the funds to the candidate’s campaign committee. 

In the most recent election, the Wisconsin Democratic Party gave more than $10.4 million to Crawford while the state GOP contributed over $9.5 million to Schimel, according to a CMD analysis of Wisconsin Ethics Commission filings. The contributions from the state parties accounted for almost two-thirds of Schimel’s overall campaign spending and more than a third of Crawford’s. 

The top donor to one of the two major political parties in Wisconsin is Diane Hendricks, who has given just under $3.6 million so far this year to the state GOP. She is the owner of Hendricks Holdings and a co-founder of ABC Roofing Supplies, the largest roofing supply company in the country. 

In addition to the $18.7 million Musk spent through PACs, he also gave $3 million to the Wisconsin GOP this year. Similarly, Richard Uihlein has given nearly $1.7 million to the

Wisconsin GOP in 2025 on top of the $4.4 million his PAC dropped on the race. His wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, gave more than $2.1 million to the state party. The couple each sent the maximum individual contribution of $20,000 to Schimel’s campaign as well. 

Major donations also flowed in on the Democratic side. Billionaire investor George Soros gave $2 million and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker gave $1.5 million to Wisconsin’s Democratic Party. 

Reform prospects 

The Marquette Law School Poll conducted in February found that 61% of respondents believe party contributions reduce the independence of judges. 

“It’s crucial that the public be able to look at courts and think they’re doing something different than raw politics,” Keith said. “This kind of an election makes it really hard for them to think of courts that way if the process for picking judges looks like the process for picking a U.S. senator.” 

Geske, who supports judicial elections in principle, shares that concern. “If there is no faith, we don’t have a system. It doesn’t work.” 

Yet, in that same poll, 90% of respondents said it was better to elect rather than appoint state Supreme Court justices. Wisconsin is one of 14 states that rely on nonpartisan elections to choose their Supreme Court justices, a practice it has followed since becoming a state in 1848. 

While the Marquette Law School Poll suggests there is broad public support for electing judges, record-breaking spending on those races raises concerns about judicial independence. 

The rising tide of outside spending is unlikely to recede, particularly given the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) allowing unlimited outside spending on elections, including for judicial races. 

“Citizens United really set us back,” Geske said. “It destroyed the ability to have an independent judicial race where people can really look at the quality of the candidate versus the politics of it.” 

In 2017, she was one of 54 judges who petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court for stricter ethics rules to prevent judges from hearing cases involving major campaign contributors. But since the petition was ultimately rejected, no state rule currently requires a judge’s recusal or automatic disqualification from hearing such a case. The decision to recuse is left up to each individual justice in each case. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. (2009) held that a judge’s recusal is required when the campaign support received is so significant that it creates a “serious risk of actual bias,” but that standard has rarely been applied since the decision.

Geske had hoped that Wisconsin’s highest court would revisit the possibility of stricter ethics rules in this context but now thinks that is unlikely given the significant financial contributions several justices have received. She believes that stronger guidelines rather than requiring mandatory recusal may be a more viable option. 

Even if recusal guidelines were strengthened, Geske noted there would be practical complications if a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice stepped aside from a case. Unlike some other states, Wisconsin has no system for replacing a recused justice. If one of the seven justices steps aside, the court could be left with risking a deadlocked 3–3 decision. 

Beyond the question of independence, Keith said more could be done to enhance transparency in Wisconsin judicial elections overall, such as requiring more frequent financial disclosures. “While we know a lot about what groups were spending and how much they spent, we know very little about where their money was coming from,” he pointed out. “A lot of it is informed guesswork.” 

“The unprecedented and obscenely high amount of political money being raised and spent in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections is a fairly new and horrific development in our state,” wrote Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, in 2024. “It wasn’t always this way here and it cannot and should not continue.” 

Heck pointed out that Wisconsin enacted the Impartial Justice Act in 2009, which provided public financing for state Supreme Court campaigns in exchange for a voluntary spending cap and a ban on soliciting private contributions. However, Republican Governor Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled legislature repealed the measure and dramatically weakened Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. 

“We went from being the progressive good government promised land to the political wasteland of the country,” Heck said. 

Common Cause has called for updating and reinstating the 2009 reforms, along with strengthening recusal rules and prohibiting coordination between campaigns and outside groups. 

A recent poll by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign found that almost three of four Wisconsin voters want limits on outside PACs, but that reform is not possible until the Citizens United decision is overturned. 

Next year’s Supreme Court election 

Major reforms are unlikely before the next election in April 2026, when conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley will be seeking to retain her seat. Spending will likely be lower than in this year’s race given that the court’s new 4–3 liberal majority will not be in play.

However, the scale and tone of the 2025 race may influence the 2026 election and others in different ways. Geske said she knows judges who would have previously considered running for the state Supreme Court but are no longer interested. 

“When you get into these kinds of numbers and that kind of race, they’re not going to put themselves and their families through it,” she said. “It narrows the number of people who are willing to run for the court.” 

Geske said that if judicial elections had been like this when she ran in 1993, she wouldn’t have run. “When I was running, we really tried to have bipartisan support,” she said. “Now it really is: ‘Whose side are you on?’” 

“I think that will continue and, as a result, I think that big money will continue to follow.”

Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition by Tony Webster CC BY 2.0 A yard sign in Mellen, Wisconsin reads: "This Time Wisconsin Deserves Fair Maps," paid for by the Fair Elections Project, FairMapsWI.com. The political sign supports redistricting legislation to reform gerrymandering.

A lawsuit filed Thursday seeks to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court declare the state’s current congressional maps unconstitutional because they pack a “substantial share” of the state’s Democratic voters into only two of eight districts. 

The lawsuit, filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission by the Democratic law firm Elias Law Group on behalf of nine Wisconsin voters, seeks to have the case bypass the lower courts and be taken up directly by the state Supreme Court. The filing comes one month after the state elected Susan Crawford to the Court, maintaining a 4-3 liberal majority on the body until at least 2028. 

“Wisconsin’s congressional map is antithetical to virtually every principle necessary to sustain a representative democracy,” the lawsuit states. “It impermissibly disadvantages voters based on their political views and partisan affiliation, systematically disfavoring Democrats because they are Democrats. By packing the substantial share of Wisconsin’s Democrats into just two congressional districts, while cracking other Democratic communities into uncompetitive Republican districts, the map condemns the party that regularly splits or wins the statewide vote to permanent minority status in the state’s congressional delegation.” 

The lawsuit argues that the nine voters are deprived of their rights because they are Democratic voters who have been drawn into districts that prevent them from electing their chosen candidates. 

In 2021, Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans in control of the Legislature reached a stalemate in negotiations over new congressional and legislative maps, which required the Court to step in. The Court, then controlled by a 4-3 conservative majority, ruled that it would only consider proposed new maps under a “least change” standard — meaning maps had to adhere as closely as possible to the maps that Republicans instituted in 2011. Those 2011 maps were considered among the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country. 

In 2022, the Court ultimately chose congressional maps proposed by Evers, but the lawsuit argues that the Court rejected the “least change” approach when it declared the legislative maps unconstitutional in 2023 and should therefore do the same for the congressional maps. 

Last year the Court rejected a similar effort. 

“This Court has since determined that the novel ‘least change’ approach that directly led to this result lacked any basis in this Court’s precedents, the Wisconsin Constitution, or past Wisconsin redistricting practice,” the lawsuit states. “Yet the congressional map adopted under the “least change” approach is now in effect and will remain in effect for the remainder of the decade absent this Court’s action.”

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - MARCH 30: Billionaire businessman Elon Musk arrives for a town hall meeting wearing a cheesehead hat at the KI Convention Center on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The town hall is being held in front of the state’s high-profile Supreme Court election between Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, who has been financially backed by Musk and endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

On April 1 Wisconsin voters decisively voted against unprecedented, massive outside interference in our state Supreme Court election by the nearly $30 million from the richest and second (to Donald Trump) most egotistical person in the world – Elon Musk.  In handing Musk’s endorsed candidate, Brad Schimel, a more than 10 percentage point, 269,000-vote drubbing, Wisconsinites rendered the nation a great service by humiliating Musk here and thereby driving him from the corridors of power and influence in Washington D.C. where he has been  savaging vital U.S. government services and programs that helped the poorest people in our nation and in the world.

Wisconsin also opted to preserve recent democracy reforms in our state by maintaining the current 4-3 progressive majority on the Court.  Fairer and more representative state legislative voting maps and the restoration of the use of secure ballot drop boxes for voters will be preserved and the possibility of new and enhanced political reform is possible in the years immediately ahead either through upholding reforms passed legislatively, through court action, or both.

But what can be done about the obscene amount of political money raised and spent to elect a new Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice in 2025 – as much if not more than $105 million – by far the most amount ever spent in a judicial election in the history of the United States?  Wisconsin faces new state supreme court elections every April for the next four years and a continuation of such frenzied and out of control spending for the foreseeable future seems both unbearable and unsustainable.

Voluntary spending limits for Supreme Court candidates with the incentive of providing them with full public financing if they agree to statutory spending limits is a possibility.  Wisconsin actually had such a law in place for exactly one Supreme Court election in 2011.  The Impartial Justice Act was made possible by passage with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature and enactment into law in 2009.  In 2011, both candidates for a seat on the high court agreed to the voluntary spending limits of $400,000 each and received full public financing. That campaign was robust, competitive and the result was close, which is what you would expect in Wisconsin.  And it cost just a tiny fraction of the more than $100 million that was spent in 2025.

Unfortunately, later in 2011, then-Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature defunded the Impartial Justice Act and all other public financing for elections, Four years later, Walker and the GOP completely eviscerated and deformed Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. They did away with limits on what political parties and outside groups can raise and spend in elections, increased individual campaign contribution limits and, most alarmingly, legalized previously illegal campaign coordination between so-called issue ad spending groups and candidates, which greatly increased opportunities for corruption and undue influence through campaign spending. Disclosure requirements were weakened and, in some instances, dismantled altogether.

In just four short years, Wisconsin was transformed from one of the most transparent, low spending and highly regarded election states in the nation to one of the worst, least regulated special interest-controlled political backwaters in the nation, akin to Texas, Louisiana or Florida.

This current corrupt status quo will remain in place for the upcoming state Supreme Court elections in 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029 unless the governor, Legislature and the Wisconsin Supreme Court take action and do the following:

• Re-establish an “impartial justice” law for the public financing of state Supreme Court elections modeled after the 2009 law which was in place for only one election before it was repealed. Update and revise it to better fit current times and circumstances including more realistic spending limits and higher public financing grants.
• Establish clear recusal rules for judges at all levels in Wisconsin that clearly decree that if a certain campaign contribution is reached or surpassed beyond a certain threshold amount, then the beneficiary of that contribution (or of the expenditure against her/his opponent) must recuse from any case in which the contributor is a party before the court.
• Restore sensible limitations on the transfer of and acceptance of campaign funds and make illegal again campaign coordination between outside special interest groups engaged in issue advocacy with all candidates for public office — particularly judges.
• Petition the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the disastrous 2010 Citizens United vs F.E.C. decision which ended over 100 years of sensible regulation of unlimited corporate, union and other outside special interest money in federal and by extension state elections, unleashing the torrential flood of campaign cash drowning democracy today.

These are common-sense, achievable reforms that, if enacted into law, would go a long way toward restoring desperately needed public confidence in the fairness, impartiality and trust in Wisconsin’s courts and in particular, our Wisconsin Supreme Court which was regarded as the model for the nation and the best anywhere a quarter century ago. But it will take determined action by all three branches of Wisconsin’s state government working together with the voters to uphold election integrity and curb corruption in a way all of us can embrace.

Ultimately, of course, it’s up to us, the voters, to hold our governmental institutions accountable and ensure that they work for us instead of for their own narrow interests  and those of the donor class. In this critical season of resistance and defiance against tyranny — speak up, make noise and ensure that your voice is heard.  Demand real reform and an end to the corruption of our representative government.

Democratic voters on Thursday asked the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court to throw out the battleground state’s current congressional district boundaries after a similar request was rejected last year.

Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight U.S. House seats — but only two of those districts are considered competitive. The petition seeks to have the state’s congressional district lines redrawn ahead of the 2026 midterms. Filed on Wednesday and made public Thursday, the petition comes from the Elias Law Group, which represents Democratic groups and candidates and also filed last year’s request.

The new petition argues that the court’s decision to redraw maps for state legislative districts a couple years ago has opened the door to revisiting maps for U.S. House districts. The petition asks for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, skipping lower courts.

The chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, Brian Schimming, called the lawsuit “a desperate attempt by far-left Democrats who have shown time and time again that they can’t win without rigged maps.”

But Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, who criticized the state Supreme Court for not hearing the lawsuit last year, praised the new effort.

“The residents of Wisconsin deserve fair maps,” Pocan said in a text message. “Hopefully this will provide that.”

The court is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices. Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford won an April election to ensure the court will remain under a 4-3 liberal majority until at least 2028.

Redistricting was an issue in that race after Crawford spoke at a virtual event billed as a “chance to put two more House seats in play,” a move that Republicans said shows that Crawford is committed to redrawing congressional districts to benefit Democrats. Crawford denied those allegations.

The court in 2023 ordered new maps for the state Legislature, saying the Republican-drawn ones were unconstitutional. The GOP-controlled Legislature, out of fear that the court would order maps even more unfavorable to Republicans, passed ones drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Democrats made gains in the state Legislature in the November election and are hoping to take majority control in 2026.

When ordering the state legislative maps redrawn, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said the earlier conservative-controlled court was wrong in 2021 to say that maps drawn that year should have as little change as possible from the maps that were in place at the time. The latest lawsuit argues that decision warranted replacing the congressional district maps that were drawn under the “least change” requirement.

In 2010, the year before Republicans redrew the congressional maps, Democrats held five seats compared with three for Republicans.

Democrats are eyeing two congressional seats for possible flipping in 2026.

Western Wisconsin’s 3rd District is represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who won an open seat in 2022 after longtime Democratic Rep. Ron Kind retired, and won reelection in 2024.

Southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st District, held by Republican Rep. Bryan Steil since 2019, was made more competitive under the latest maps but still favors Republicans.

The current congressional maps in Wisconsin, drawn by Evers, were approved by the state Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Democrats ask Wisconsin Supreme Court to toss state’s congressional boundaries is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Wisconsin’s constitution gives the Legislature two methods for removing judges from office.

Impeachment starts with a majority Assembly vote based on “corrupt conduct in office” or commission of a crime. A two-thirds Senate vote following a Senate trial would result in removal.

“Removal by address” occurs through a two-thirds vote of each chamber, based on misconduct. The judge would have an opportunity to make a defense. 

Wisconsin judges run in nonpartisan elections. Both chambers of the Legislature have a simple Republican majority. 

Republicans called for the Legislature to remove Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan after the FBI arrested her April 24. She is charged with two crimes for allegedly obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting a criminal defendant in her courtroom.

Democrats criticized the arrest.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court temporarily suspended Dugan. The Supreme Court can also remove judges for misconduct, based on a state Judicial Commission investigation.

Judges can also be removed by recall election.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• State of Wisconsin: Wisconsin Constitution (Article VII)
• Wisconsin Legislative Council: Removal of Elected Officials: Recall, Impeachment, Expulsion, and Removal
• Wisconsin Legislature: Wisconsin State Senate
• Wisconsin Legislature: Wisconsin State Assembly
• X: Scott Walker post
• Wisconsin Watch: Arrest of Milwaukee judge echoes Massachusetts case — with one key difference
• WisPolitics: Dems condemn Milwaukee judge's arrest; Republicans call for her removal
• Wisconsin Supreme Court: In re the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Hannah C. Dugan, Judge
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans want to remove Judge Hannah Dugan. Here's how that may work
• Wisconsin Watch: Impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz? Here’s what’s missing from debate
• State Bar of Wisconsin: Legal Research 101: Understanding Judicial Misconduct and Disability in Wisconsin
• WPR: Wisconsin Republicans now have impeachment power. Here’s how the process works

Could the Wisconsin Legislature remove Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan from office over her ICE case? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

An outside investigation found that last year’s leak of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s order accepting a case challenging the state’s 1849 abortion law was “likely deliberate,” but was unable to determine its source. 

Last June, Wisconsin Watch published a story detailing the contents of the Court’s draft order agreeing to hear Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Urmanski, the lawsuit challenging the validity of the abortion law. After the leak, all seven members of the Court condemned the order’s release, and the investigation began in August. 

According to a report released Wednesday, investigators interviewed 62 people and reviewed computer records in an effort to find the leak’s source. Despite the inconclusive findings, the report includes a number of recommendations for improving the Supreme Court’s security. 

The draft order was written on June 13 and Wisconsin Watch published its report on June 26. Investigators interviewed the 28 people who had “immediate access” to the draft. They included the seven justices, judicial assistants, law clerks and Supreme Court commissioners, as well as 18 people whose key card data shows they entered the justices’ chambers during that time period, interns and other office staff. 

Investigators requested computer usage data to determine what websites office staff visited during that time frame. The report states, however, that computer usage data from June 13 to 25 is missing. 

“The lack of complete website visitation logs for the period between June 13, 2024 and June 26, 2024 significantly hampered the ability to thoroughly examine the circumstances surrounding the leak,” the report states. “The issue underscores the importance of proper data management, retention, and verification procedures especially when such information is crucial for ongoing investigations.”

No evidence was found during the investigation that would show the leak was caused by an external breach of the Court’s network, according to the report. 

But the report also states that justices and Court staff often send confidential information to the justices’ personal email accounts and leave confidential documents unattended in printer trays. Unauthorized individuals have at times been able to access restricted floors in the Court’s Madison offices, the investigators also found. 

To improve the Supreme Court’s security, the report recommends a number of policy changes. Those include establishing better protocols for the handling of paper copies of confidential documents; stopping the justices’ use of personal email accounts; improving retention of computer history data; and using digital watermarks on confidential documents to ensure “the document remains traceable throughout its lifecycle.”

Audrey Skwierawski, the director of state courts, said in a statement that the Supreme Court would use the report’s recommendations to improve its processes.

“Integrity is the lifeblood of our court system, and we take threats to that integrity very seriously,” Skwierawski said. “Our responsibility now is to respond to and learn from the challenges identified through the investigation. This report gives us an important opportunity to strengthen the systems that support our courts and the public we serve.”

She added that her office is establishing a “Judicial Operations Integrity Task Force” to review the recommendations and proposing ways to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Protesters gather outside the Federal Building in Milwaukee to denounce the arrest of Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Smart, progressive women pose a serious threat to MAGA supremacy. Just ask Elon Musk, who wasted millions of dollars in Wisconsin trying to win a seat on the state Supreme Court for MAGA candidate Brad Schimel, only to watch Susan Crawford clean Schimel’s clock.

From his first presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016, “Lock her up!” has been Donald Trump’s battle cry. Restoring the greatness of a white, male-dominated America apparently requires menacing displays of dominance over women in positions of authority. Who can forget Trump acting like a stalker, invading Clinton’s personal space and looming behind her during a 2016 debate?

On Friday, a few weeks after MAGA lost its bid to disempower the progressive female majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Trump administration sent federal agents to arrest Hannah Dugan at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Trump’s attorney general and the man he chose to lead the FBI gleefully posted pictures of Dugan’s “perp walk” in handcuffs, crowing about this unprecedented assault on the dignity and authority of a judge and the sovereignty of local courts.

On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan. “In order to uphold the public’s confidence in the courts of this state during the pendency of the criminal proceeding against Judge Dugan, we conclude, on our own motion, that it is in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties,” the state’s highest court said in a two-page letter ordering Judge Dugan “temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge.”

It’s a perplexing decision. It didn’t arise from any complaint; the Court acted on its own. And Dugan had already been relieved of her duties while she focuses on her defense by the chief judge in Milwaukee, who assigned her calendar to other judges to cover.

Worse, the suspension gives the impression that the federal charges against Dugan are indeed serious. But that impression is not supported by the only evidence the government has produced.

The justification for Dugan’s arrest, laid out in a federal criminal complaint, is that she impeded federal law enforcement agents when she objected to ICE disrupting her court’s proceedings and ushered the man they came to arrest out a side door. The defendant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was appearing before Dugan on a misdemeanor battery charge unrelated to his immigration status, exited into the public hallway where the agents were waiting for him. Then they followed him outside and made their arrest — unimpeded.

Fox News claimed Dugan concealed Flores-Ruiz in a jury room. But that assertion is contradicted by the sworn testimony in the government’s own criminal complaint. 

The complaint features breathlessly sexist descriptions of Dugan appearing “visibly angry” and “walking quickly,” as if that were evidence of wrongdoing. But any actual wrongdoing is hard to pinpoint.

“Whatever you think of the actual conduct the complaint alleges,” says Dean Strang, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a long-time Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer, “there is a real question about whether there’s even arguably any federal crime here.” 

The government’s behavior, meanwhile, is “extraordinarily atypical,” for a nonviolent, nondrug charge involving someone who is not a flight risk, says Strang.

The handcuffs, the public arrest at Dugan’s workplace, the media circus — none of it was normal, or justified. Then Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel began posting pictures of Dugan in handcuffs on social media to brag about it.

“So what is it they are trying to do?” asks Strang. His conclusion: “Humiliate and terrify, not just her but every other judge in the country.”

The bigger issue here, beyond an unprecedented, public display of dominance and intimidation by the Trump administration, is that, in turning federal law enforcement into an arm of his personal, vengeance-themed reality show, Trump is running roughshod over the constitutional principle of federalism, which respects the sovereignty of the states, the integrity of the courts and public safety. Scaring defendants, witnesses and victims away from making court appearances makes it harder to administer justice and makes all of us less safe.

But you’d never know that to listen to Republican state officials, who are championing federal agents barging into courts, schools and churches, forgetting everything they ever said about local control and states’ rights. On Tuesday, Assembly Republicans led by Speaker Robin Vos sent a letter to Gov. Tony Evers, declaring “our caucus believes it is imperative that our laws reflect the need for local law enforcement to comply with these efforts.”

Republicans accuse Evers of issuing guidance to state officials that impedes federal ICE raids.

 “Unfortunately, recent events in Milwaukee have underscored the importance for our state to legislate and enforce compliance with federal immigration law,” their letter declares, citing Dugan’s arrest.

The Republicans demand that Evers rescind guidance telling state agencies that they need not answer questions, hand over files, or allow ICE to enter non-public areas without a warrant.

Capitulating to an administration that has admitted to deporting U.S. citizens and defied court orders to effect the return of a man it admits was mistakenly sent to a Salvadoran prison is a terrible idea. Big law firms that agreed to drop clients and offer free legal work to appease the Trump administration have eroded trust in the law. Authoritarian undermining of our legal system is a grave danger.

The least the most timid among us can do is insist that the federal government follow the law before caving in. That’s what Dugan did, when she asked if the agents who came to her courtroom to arrest Flores-Ruiz had a judicial warrant. They did not. Nor do they have proof that Dugan herself broke any laws.

The last thing we need right now is more capitulation to MAGA bullying. Stand strong. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan Tuesday due to the federal charges that allege she tried to help a man in her courtroom avoid arrest by federal immigration agents.

Dugan was arrested Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Milwaukee County courthouse and has been charged with two federal criminal offenses, felony obstruction of a federal agency and a misdemeanor for concealing a person to help them avoid arrest. 

Earlier this month, ICE and other federal agents showed up outside her courtroom to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant accused of misdemeanor battery. The federal government alleges she helped Flores-Ruiz evade them by allowing him to exit using a side door without going past the agents. The agents then apprehended him outside the courthouse on foot.

The Court said in a two-page letter that it was in the public interest to relieve Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan of her duties. The letter stated that Dugan is temporarily banned from “exercising the powers of a circuit court judge” as of Tuesday.

“In the exercise of [the Supreme Court’s] constitutional authority and in order to uphold the public’s confidence in the courts of this state during the pendency of the criminal proceeding against Judge Dugan, we conclude, on our own motion, that it is in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties,” the Court stated.

Dugan’s legal team said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that they “are disappointed that the Court acted in unilateral fashion. We continue to assert Judge Dugan’s innocence and look forward [to] her vindication in court.”

Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ creative use of his uniquely powerful veto can lock in a school funding increase for 400 years, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The 4-3 ruling from the liberal-controlled court affirms the partial veto power of Wisconsin governors, which is the broadest of any state and has been used by both Republicans and Democrats to reshape spending bills passed by the Legislature.

Wisconsin is the only state where governors can partially veto spending bills by striking words, numbers and punctuation to create new meaning or spending amounts. In most states, governors can only eliminate or reduce spending amounts.

The court’s four liberal justices ruled Friday that the state constitution allows the governor to strike digits to create a new year or to remove language to create a longer duration than the one approved by the Legislature.

“We are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing,” Justice Jill Karofsky wrote for the majority. “However, our constitution does not limit the governor’s partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable.”

Justice Brian Hagedorn, writing for the three-justice conservative minority, said Wisconsin was now in a “fantastical state of affairs” that allows the governor to write new law through the use of his partial veto.

“One might scoff at the silliness of it all, but this is no laughing matter,” Hagedorn wrote. “The decision today cannot be justified under any reasonable reading of the Wisconsin Constitution.”

Evers called the decision “great news for Wisconsin’s kids and public schools.”

Brian Schimming, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said the ruling gives Evers “unchecked authority to override the will of Wisconsin voters.”

The ruling came in a case against Evers that was supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature. It is one of two lawsuits pending before the court dealing with vetoes by the governor. Republicans this year also introduced a constitutional amendment intended to curb veto powers.

Evers’ partial veto in 2023 increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.

Evers told lawmakers at the time that his partial veto was intended to give school districts increases in funding “in perpetuity.”

The Legislature and the state’s largest business lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, argued that the court should strike down Evers’ partial veto and declare it unconstitutional. They argued that the Evers veto was barred under a 1990 constitutional amendment adopted by voters that removed the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — known as the “Vanna White” veto, named for the co-host of the game show “Wheel of Fortune” who flips letters to reveal word phrases.

Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget bill, they argued.

But Evers countered that the “Vanna White” veto ban applies only to striking individual letters to create new words, not vetoing digits to create new numbers. Evers said that he was simply using the long-standing partial veto process allowed under the law.

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened by voters over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by former Republican and Democratic governors. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, then controlled by conservatives, undid three of Evers’ partial vetoes, but a majority of justices did not issue clear guidance on what was allowed.

Reshaping state budgets through the partial veto is a long-standing act of gamesmanship in Wisconsin between the governor and Legislature, as lawmakers try to craft bills in a way that is largely immune from creative vetoes.

Republican legislative leaders have said they were waiting for the ruling in this case and another pending case affecting the governor’s veto powers before taking up spending bills this session, including the two-year state budget.

The other case centers on whether Evers properly used his partial veto power on a bill that detailed the plan for spending on new literacy programs. The Legislature contends that Evers’ partial veto was unconstitutional because the bill did not appropriate money. Evers contends the Legislature is trying to control how the executive branch spends money and limit his partial veto power.

If the court sides with Evers in that case, it could greatly expand the kinds of bills subject to partial vetoes in the future.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin governor can lock in 400-year school funding increase using a veto, state Supreme Court says is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If you want to understand how Wisconsin Supreme Court elections became so political — with a record $100 million spent on this year’s nasty contest — it’s helpful to trace the history of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.

Gableman’s career began full of promise, diligence and ambition. His cousin told Wisconsin Watch’s Tom Kertscher that at a young age Gableman “was always the adult in the room.”

But over the course of his career he became entangled in partisan politics.

Gableman was willing to travel hundreds of miles to take political appointments around the state, even receiving a Burnett County judgeship for which he didn’t apply. Gov. Scott McCallum acknowledged to Wisconsin Watch part of the reason he picked Gableman was he was a Republican supporter, bypassing two local finalists recommended by McCallum’s advisory committee for judicial appointments.

When Gableman ran for Wisconsin Supreme Court, he authorized a misleading, racially charged political ad against his opponent. At the time it was shocking enough to draw a formal complaint, but the Supreme Court couldn’t agree if it violated the judicial code of conduct. Now, you couldn’t turn on the TV or scroll social media before this year’s April 1 election without a faceful of misleading ads.

Despite his staunch Republican presence on the state’s high court, writing key opinions on Act 10 and dismissing an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker, Gableman fell out of favor with the party after he attended the 2016 Republican National Convention, in possible violation of judicial rules against partisanship. After causing disturbances in hospitality suites, he had to be escorted to his hotel. Party support for him waned. He decided, at age 50, not to run for a second 10-year term.

And yet, when President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Republicans called upon Gableman, who worked in Trump’s first administration, to investigate the results. Gableman found no evidence the election results were fraudulent and was called an “embarrassment” by the same Republican leader who hired him. The investigation ultimately cost taxpayers $2.8 million, four times more than its original budget. Now he’s facing a three-year suspension of his law license for his unprofessional conduct during the investigation.

The courts are not supposed to be subject to the same political whims of the legislative and executive branches. Supreme Court justices and judges run for office during nonpartisan spring elections for a reason.

As Kertscher’s account of Gableman’s career shows, raw power politics created this situation. It will be up to the public to decide if it wants something better.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Michael Gableman’s story is a study in how politics have infected Wisconsin’s courts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin’s recent Supreme Court election, with its $100 million in record spending and wall-to-wall attack ads, spotlighted how politicized the state’s “nonpartisan” high court has become.

To understand how we got here, consider the rise and fall of former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has agreed to surrender his law license for behavior unbecoming of a lawyer, let alone a former top judge.

Last November’s 10-count complaint filed by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, an arm of the very court he served on, is not the first time Gableman, 58, has been accused of an ethical lapse. But until now he has avoided public consequences. One example of Gableman’s actions, not previously reported, shows how closely intertwined an officially nonpartisan justice became with party politics.

Wisconsin Watch has learned that while a justice, Gableman attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland — in possible violation of judicial rules prohibiting attendance at party conventions — and while there, he appeared intoxicated and was escorted out of the convention hall after causing disturbances, according to two Wisconsin Republicans in attendance and a third briefed on the incident shortly after it happened.

Former longtime state GOP leader Steve King recalled then-U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy telling him that Gableman “has a problem and we need to get him back to his hotel.”

Gableman had established a solid legal career, having served in district attorney offices and courtrooms across the state. He made history winning election to the Supreme Court — the first candidate in four decades to defeat an incumbent justice.

But after the GOP convention in Cleveland, his career entered a downward spiral. His Republican support waned, and he decided not to run for a second 10-year term and disappeared from public life.

Then in 2021, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired Gableman as a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Wisconsin. 

At the time, it was not publicly disclosed that Gableman had worked a $170,000 executive branch job in the final year of Trump’s first administration.

According to newly obtained public records, Gableman’s compensation for the failed election probe was more than twice what was budgeted for his role. 

The entire investigation cost taxpayers nearly $2.8 million, a new figure that includes a $432,000 open records lawsuit settlement reached earlier this month. The total is more than four times the $676,000 that was budgeted for the project.

Gableman’s career — from his first major courtroom job in 1999, to the pivotal 2008 Supreme Court election, to perpetuating Trump’s debunked election conspiracies — is a case study in what can happen when partisanship entangles the government branch most shielded from political volatility.

‘Always the adult in the room’

Raised in Waukesha County as the youngest of five in a middle-class family, Gableman stood out for doing right, his cousin David Gableman told Wisconsin Watch. The former justice, through his cousin, declined to be interviewed and didn’t respond to other interview requests.

While growing up, “he was always the adult in the room,” David Gableman said. “Always the serious one, very focused. … He always wanted to have an impact, he always wanted to make a difference in life.”

A multiyear class president at New Berlin West High School, Gableman earned a bachelor’s degree in history and education from Ripon College. At Ripon, he was sports editor of the yearbook and a member of Beta Sigma Pi.

In earning his law degree in 1993 from the Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, Gableman made the dean’s honor roll.

Gableman, who never married and has no children, was aided in his career rise by Republican Party connections and a willingness to move to rural areas.

After working as a county government attorney and prosecutor in Langlade, Forest and Marathon counties in northern Wisconsin, in 1999 Gableman was appointed by GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson as district attorney in far-northwestern Ashland County.

Looking back, Thompson doesn’t see it as odd that he didn’t choose a local attorney, though he acknowledged he doesn’t recall even interviewing Gableman.

“I’m sure that Michael Gableman’s name came forward as an individual, that he was a Republican and that he was a good lawyer,” Thompson told Wisconsin Watch.

Gableman later described himself as an independent when Thompson appointed him. His first recorded campaign contribution in a Wisconsin election was to a Democrat — $500 in 1998 to then-state Assembly Rep. Greg Huber, who represented Marathon County.

Ashland County was something of a GOP launching pad at the time. Gableman was preceded as district attorney by J.B. Van Hollen, who went on to become Wisconsin’s attorney general, and succeeded by Duffy, now Trump’s transportation secretary. Van Hollen and Duffy also had been tapped for the job from outside the county.

Another GOP connection sets up a Supreme Court run

Running unopposed, Gableman was elected Ashland County district attorney as a Republican in 2000. District attorneys, unlike judges, can run with a partisan affiliation.

By then, Gableman chaired the county Republican Party. In 2002, he cut short his term as district attorney to take an administrative law judge position 260 miles away in Appleton under Thompson’s successor, GOP Gov. Scott McCallum.

The low-profile, largely bureaucratic position handles disputes within government agencies. But it gave Gableman the title of judge.

Just two months later, McCallum appointed Gableman to a vacant circuit court judgeship nearly 300 miles away in Burnett County. 

It played out in a partisan way.

Gableman had not applied for the Burnett County judgeship. Yet McCallum chose him over two local applicants recommended by McCallum’s advisory committee for judicial appointments.

Gableman contributed $2,500 to McCallum’s campaign in the months before the appointment and headed up some McCallum fundraising events.

Asked why he picked Gableman, McCallum told Wisconsin Watch he knew Gableman “as a supporter of mine” and considered him a good attorney and a hard worker.

“It came down to it, the other two were Democrats, I appointed Gableman,” he said.

It’s true that one of the finalists, then-Burnett County district attorney Ken Kutz, was a Democrat. But the other, Mark Biller, then district attorney in neighboring Polk County, was a Republican. McCallum didn’t respond to requests to clarify his recollection of Kutz and Biller.

McCallum made it clear when interviewing Kutz that the selection process was decidedly partisan. 

“The first question was, ‘Why the hell should I appoint a Democrat for judge in Burnett County?’” Kutz recalled to Wisconsin Watch.

Biller was in the right party, but he had lost his run for Polk County judge months earlier.

He said McCallum chose Gableman because McCallum was “looking for someone who could use that job for higher office and advance party goals.”

“He went out there and just campaigned to death,” Kutz recalled of Gableman’s run for Burnett County judge several months after being chosen by McCallum. “The guy is a politician like nobody’s business.”

Nasty ads taint 2008 race

Gableman “ran a real tight courtroom” and performed well as a Burnett County judge, said Kutz, who succeeded Gableman after Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle appointed him to the bench.

Gableman helped create the county’s Drug and Alcohol Court, one of the first in Wisconsin, its Restorative Justice Program that helps divert offenders from jail, and inmate and juvenile justice community service programs.

But in deciding to run for Supreme Court in 2008, he was virtually unknown outside of GOP circles. Republicans speaking on condition of anonymity said Gableman emerged as the candidate after better-known conservatives opted not to challenge the incumbent Justice Louis Butler.

Butler, a former Milwaukee County judge and the state’s first African American justice, had been appointed in 2004 by Doyle. Both he and Gableman were running statewide for the first time.

Gableman’s campaign, led by former state Republican Party executive director Darrin Schmitz, cast Gableman as a law-and-order candidate, drawing a contrast with Butler, who previously had worked as a public defender. In attack ads, Gableman’s supporters nicknamed Butler “loophole Louie” — suggesting Butler would use legal loopholes to help criminal defendants.

Gableman stayed on message, said David Gableman, who accompanied his cousin on many campaign trips. “It didn’t matter what the question was,” Gableman would always quickly pivot to how many sheriffs had endorsed him, his cousin said.

He also received heavy backing from business interests, especially Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which wanted a reliable conservative to flip what they viewed as an activist Supreme Court. 

The court had issued a series of controversial rulings, including one finding that individual manufacturers could be held liable for a child’s lead paint injuries, even without proof they were responsible. 

WMC and other conservative groups spent $2.75 million backing Gableman, nearly seven times what his own campaign spent, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign estimated.

At the time, the $6 million spent on the race — a fraction of the $100 million spent in the 2025 Supreme Court contest — passed the previous campaign spending record for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. That record had been set the previous year and was itself four times higher than the previous spending record.

Gableman defeated Butler by nearly 3 points, becoming the state’s first candidate to unseat an incumbent justice since 1967.

In his victory speech, Gableman declared a triumph for “judicial conservatism.”

William Bablitch, a former Supreme Court justice, said at the time: “Right now, the impression of the people of the state is justice is for sale, and some are going to get a fairer shake than others.”

Surviving accusations of misconduct 

In what would become a pattern, Gableman was accused of two ethical lapses during and soon after the 2008 campaign.

Liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now alleged Gableman had made campaign fundraising calls for McCallum from his taxpayer-funded Ashland County district attorney’s office in 2002. One Wisconsin Now produced records showing 55 calls had been made from Gableman’s office and from his government-issued cellphone to McCallum fundraisers and donors, McCallum’s campaign office and others.

One Wisconsin Now requested investigations, but several authorities, including Van Hollen, Duffy, the Government Accountability Board and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, refused.

The calls “sent the message that he was political,” said Sachin Chheda, who ran Butler’s campaign. “It also sent the message that he was willing to push the envelope.”

Gableman also faced a judicial oversight investigation for a misleading campaign ad he approved three weeks before the election.

The ad falsely implied that, as a public defender, Butler used a loophole to free imprisoned rapist Reuben Lee Mitchell, who later molested a child. In fact, Butler’s representation didn’t result in a reduced punishment and Mitchell committed the later crime only after serving his prison sentence.

“It just shows he was willing to do anything,” Scot Ross, former head of One Wisconsin Now, said of Gableman.

David Gableman noted there were harsh attack ads on both sides, recalling that another relative didn’t vote for his cousin after ads accused him of giving light sentences to sex offenders.

In October 2008, just two months after Gableman was sworn in, the state Judicial Commission filed a complaint against him, alleging his ad violated the state judicial code of conduct. 

The commission dropped the case in 2010 after the Supreme Court deadlocked 3-3 on what to do about the complaint. Gableman didn’t participate. The other three conservative justices said that while the ad was “distasteful,” its statements were “objectively true” and protected by the First Amendment.

Reliable conservative falls out of favor with his party

Gableman’s tenure on the Supreme Court was marked by controversy.

When Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Justice David Prosser of putting his hands around her neck during an argument — an incident witnessed by four justices — Gableman’s account was the only outlier, characterizing the 5-foot-3 Walsh Bradley as looming over the 5-foot-9 Prosser, according to a sheriff’s report.

Gableman also claimed to sheriff’s investigators that Walsh Bradley had smacked him on the back of the head in the presence of their colleagues for calling Shirley Abrahamson, then the chief justice, by her first name. No other justice corroborated his story.

Ethics complaints were filed with two state agencies over Gableman’s acceptance of two years of free legal services, likely worth tens of thousands of dollars, in the case filed against him over the Butler ad. As a justice, Gableman did not recuse himself from cases argued by Michael Best & Friedrich, the law firm that provided his free legal aid. He ruled in favor of the firm’s clients five times, more than any other justice during his tenure on the court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. No action was taken against him from those complaints.

A strong conservative on the court, Gableman wrote the court’s 5-2 opinion upholding Act 10, the 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions. He also wrote the 4-2 decision that ended what was known as the John Doe II criminal investigation into Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s coordination with outside groups during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections that Act 10 triggered.

Then Cleveland happened.

Attending the Republican National Convention was problematic for a sitting justice. The state Judicial Code of Conduct directs judges to “avoid partisan activity” and says they may not “participate” in political party conventions. But what’s labeled as a comment on the rule says judges “may attend public events, even those sponsored by political parties or candidates, so long as the attendance does not constitute the kind of partisan activity prohibited by this rule.” In recent years, Wisconsin candidates for the Supreme Court and a justice-elect have spoken at state Democratic and Republican party conventions. 

One Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he witnessed Gableman being “loud and obnoxious” at the convention. Gableman appeared to be intoxicated before other attendees escorted him out of the convention hall and back to his hotel, the Republican source said.

That source and another Republican, who was not in attendance, said they were told by party colleagues that Gableman belligerently insulted Janesville U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, then speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in a hospitality suite, before Duffy became involved and whisked him away.

Spokespersons for Duffy and Ryan did not return messages seeking comment.

David Gableman said he drove to the convention with his cousin, though they didn’t attend all of the same events together. He said he wasn’t aware of any incidents. 

The Republicans who declined to be identified said the incident added to concerns about whether Gableman would be the best candidate to back in 2018. In June 2017, Gableman, then only 50, announced he would not run for a second term.

In 2020, Gableman was hired by the federal Office of Personnel Management at a salary of $170,800 putting him among the highest-paid 10% of employees in the agency. Gableman was involved in implementing a Trump executive order to curb diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for federal employees, a precursor to what would happen this year with Trump’s second administration.

2020 election probe becomes new focus

When Trump lost the 2020 election and fought the result in court with baseless claims of voter fraud, Gableman, no longer working in government, became a lieutenant in Trump’s election fraud-fighting army.

Gableman, like Trump, “has always been kind of anti-establishment,” believes “the swamp” is deep and that politicians aren’t accountable, David Gableman said. “He’s been loyal to Trump not because he’s a blind soldier, but because he has similar political beliefs.”

Defending Trump also allowed Gableman to return to the public spotlight.

Four days after Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, Gableman suggested at a pro-Trump rally in Milwaukee that the election had been stolen.

In June 2021, Trump accused Vos, the state’s Assembly speaker, and other Wisconsin GOP leaders of “working hard to cover up election corruption.”

The next day, Vos announced at the state Republican Party convention that he had retained Gableman to investigate the 2020 election.

The move took pressure off Vos and other Wisconsin Republicans from Trump’s base. They were placating Trump by choosing a Trump-aligned former Supreme Court justice to lead the investigation.

Vos miscalculated.

It wasn’t widely known at the time that Gableman had been working for Trump’s administration in 2020. Asked if he knew, when hiring Gableman, that the former justice had been working for Trump, Vos said he didn’t think so.

Gableman began his first months of election investigation work at the New Berlin Public Library because he didn’t own a computer.

It didn’t go well. Gableman acknowledged having little understanding of how elections work. He also:

• Tried to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay for refusing to submit to depositions, which he had no authority to do.
• Endorsed various false claims about lawmakers’ power to decertify Biden’s election victory, which the New York Times reported had lended “credence to the conspiracy theories.” 
• Deleted records in violation of state regulations, leading Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn to say Gableman appeared to have “gone rogue” and “run amok” by refusing to comply with the state’s open records law.

His work did please one fan, however.

In April 2022, Gableman attended a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where Trump praised him before an audience: “Michael, you’ve been unbelievable,” The Washington Post reported.

His efforts drew derision from Wisconsin legal authorities and even the party leader who hired him.

In June 2022, a year into the election investigation, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington asked the Office of Lawyer Regulation in a court order to discipline Gableman. Remington found Gableman in contempt of court and fined him $2,000 per day for refusing Remington’s order to produce documents. Gableman also displayed “sneering” and mocking behavior in court, Remington wrote, and “destroyed any sense of decorum and irreparably damaged the public’s perception of the judicial process.”

Vos fired Gableman two months later, in August 2022, calling him an “embarrassment.” 

After the firing, Gableman’s name was removed from his law school’s list of notable alumni.

Gableman was paid $117,000, more than double the $55,000 that had been budgeted, according to a previously unreported document Wisconsin Watch obtained from the Assembly clerk.

“He paid no attention to detail, he delegated almost all the work to somebody else and very poor follow-through,” Vos told Wisconsin Watch. “It seemed like Mike Gableman was more concerned about the money he was earning as opposed to finding the truth.”

Reviews by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and The Associated Press found no evidence of uncounted, miscounted or fraudulent votes that would have had any bearing in Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

Election probe leads to lawyer regulation complaint

Gableman’s work was supposed to conclude within a few months. Ultimately, the nearly 14-month probe cost taxpayers $2.77 million, including $1.82 million for outside lawyers. Earlier this month, the state agreed to pay $431,843 in legal fees to American Oversight, a group that sued over destruction of records related to the investigation.

Less than a month after being fired, Gableman told a gathering of Outagamie County Republicans: “Our comfort is holding us back from taking the action that’s necessary. … It’s that very comfort that is keeping us from what our Founders knew to be the only way to keep an honest government, which is revolution.”

Even while under investigation for lawyer misconduct, he continued to advance his election conspiracies to sympathetic audiences.

The Wolf River Area Patriots promoted its January meeting by touting a Gableman speech on the importance of electing conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel to the state Supreme Court.

About 50 people turned out in tiny New London, two hours northwest of Milwaukee. The meeting was open to the public. Gableman spoke in his resonant baritone for more than an hour, stoking fear and spreading unproven theories about casting votes in the names of overseas military service people or the deceased, and saying Wisconsin elections “are only as secure as the worst criminally minded fraudster wants them to be.” 

Gableman said little about Schimel, who went on to lose the April 1 election, other than that he was superior to eventual winner Susan Crawford. He called Crawford “a particularly nasty piece of work.” 

At more than $100 million, the Schimel-Crawford race set a national record for spending on a state supreme court contest and featured droves of misleading attack ads that have become common since Gableman’s 2008 campaign.

The state Office of Lawyer Regulation’s case against Gableman, which includes allegations raised in a 100-page complaint from the Law Forward law firm in March 2023, said he violated 10 counts of Supreme Court rules of professional conduct for attorneys. He is accused of making false statements about a judge, an opposing attorney and two mayors; making false statements to the Office of Lawyer Regulation; disobeying a court order; and violating the state open records law and confidentiality rules. 

Gableman had gone from a top jurist sworn to uphold the constitution to a political player accused of lying in court and breaking laws. 

He initially denied the charges, which could have led to the permanent loss of his law license. 

But on April 7, he capitulated.

In the settlement filing: “Gableman hereby stipulates that he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of misconduct … and agrees that the allegations of the complaint provide an adequate factual basis for a determination of SCR (Supreme Court Rules) violations as alleged in each of  the ten counts of the complaint.”

He agreed with this admission to losing his license to practice law for three years.

The proposed settlement must be approved by two more authorities to become official: 

A lawyer serving as referee in the case.

And the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Some research for this article was provided by Audrey Nielsen of the nonprofit Sunlight Research Center, which assists newsrooms with investigative reporting.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has become hyper political. The rise and fall of Michael Gableman’s career shows how that happened. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who spread election conspiracies and led an investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss in the swing state agreed Monday to surrender his law license to settle multiple misconduct violations.

The state Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a 10-count complaint in November against Michael Gableman, accusing him of misconduct during the probe. The state Supreme Court ultimately could revoke Gableman’s law license, although the court rarely administers such a harsh punishment against wayward attorneys.

The OLR and Gableman filed a stipulation with the Supreme Court on Monday in which they agreed an appropriate sanction would be suspending Gableman’s license for three years. A referee overseeing the case and the Supreme Court must approve the agreement before it can take effect.

Gableman acknowledged in the filing that the complaint provides “an adequate factual basis” and that he couldn’t successfully defend himself against the allegations.

Complaint linked to fruitless election probe

The complaint stems from Gableman’s investigation into allegations of fraud related to the 2020 election that Trump narrowly lost in Wisconsin. Under pressure from Trump, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired Gableman to lead the probe.

The investigation failed to uncover any widespread fraud, but drew bipartisan derision and cost taxpayers more than $2.3 million. Throughout the seven-month inquiry, Gableman was sued over his response to open records requests and subpoenas and countersued. He was ridiculed for scant expense records, criticized for sending confusing emails and making rudimentary errors in his filings and called out for meeting with conspiracy theorists.

Vos fired Gableman in 2022, calling him an “embarrassment” and saying he deserved to lose his law license. Gableman retaliated in 2024 by helping Trump backers trying to recall Vos from office, but they failed twice to gather enough valid signatures to force a vote.

Vos spokesperson Luke Wolff didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Gableman’s agreement with the OLR.

Allegations include disrupting court, insulting attorneys, records violations

The OLR complaint accuses Gableman of making false statements, disrupting a court hearing, questioning a judge’s integrity, making derogatory remarks about opposing counsel, violating open records law and revealing information about representing Vos during the investigation while Gableman was promoting a failed effort to recall Vos from office.

According to the OLR complaint, Gableman tried to force the mayors of Madison and Green Bay to submit to depositions even though he had agreed the sessions wouldn’t be needed. He discussed private conversations he had with Vos about the investigation in videos supporting the recall effort in violation of attorney ethics and falsely accused election officials of trying to cover up how they used election grants from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life group.

He also practiced law while working on the investigation despite his claim to the contrary and destroyed public records that liberal group American Oversight had requested, the complaint says.

During a hearing before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on whether the records were inadvertently destroyed, Gableman accused Remington from the witness stand of railroading him into jail and acting as an advocate for American Oversight. While the court was in recess, Gableman was captured on a microphone making sarcastic comments about Remington and American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg’s ability to do her job without Remington’s help.

Remington found Gableman in contempt of court for not complying with open records laws. The judge forwarded the contempt order to the OLR. Attorneys from the liberal law firm Law Forward also requested sanctions against Gableman in 2023.

Law Forward’s president, Jeff Mandell, said in a statement reacting to the stipulation that the firm was “glad to see consequences for those who plan and promote overturning the will of the people.”

Gableman served on Supreme Court for a single term

Gableman was a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 2008 to 2018 and joined with the conservative majority in several major rulings, including one that upheld the state law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers.

The court is now controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, including one elected to fill the seat Gableman vacated.

Liberals extend control of court after most expensive court race in US history

Liberal Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel earlier this month for an open seat on the court, ensuring liberals will maintain their majority until at least 2028.

Fueled largely by contributions from billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros, total spending on the race topped $100 million, making it the most expensive U.S. court race ever.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Michael Gableman, former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who led 2020 election probe, agrees to surrender law license is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election was the most expensive U.S. court race in history, drawing more than $100 million in campaign spending. 

That eye-popping figure has drawn plenty of headlines — as did the millions spent by billionaire Elon Musk to support Republican-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who lost handily to Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, backed by Democrats.

But the race also set another record in Wisconsin for a spring election not featuring a presidential primary contest: in voter turnout. 

More than 2.3 million people cast ballots in the election, according to Associated Press tracking. That amounts to nearly 51% of the voting age population, shattering the previous record for such elections of 39% in 2023.

The high turnout is part of a trend in Wisconsin politics since President Donald Trump’s first election in 2016, Marquette University’s John Johnson wrote in an analysis last week.

“Wisconsin’s electorate is just plain extremely engaged,” he wrote. “Scour American history and you’ll struggle to find an example of (a) state as hyper-engaged with, and narrowly divided by, electoral politics as Wisconsin in the present moment.” 

Last week’s election offered good news for Democrats, aside from the top-line figures in Crawford’s 55%-45% win. (The Supreme Court is officially nonpartisan, but Democrats backed Crawford, while Republicans backed Schimel.) 

When comparing the high-turnout 2024 presidential election to the latest Supreme Court race, voting shifted toward the Democratic-backed candidate in all 72 counties.

The biggest difference in the latest election, according to Johnson: “A majority of the million voters who stayed home are probably Republicans, or at least Trump supporters.” 

More broadly, it’s clear that the high stakes of the Supreme Court race drove most to cast ballots in an election that also included an officially nonpartisan contest for state superintendent of public instruction and a successful ballot measure to enshrine voter ID requirements in the Wisconsin Constitution. 

Nearly 200,000 people who cast ballots did not choose a superintendent candidate. Democratic-backed incumbent Jill Underly prevailed over Republican-backed Brittany Kinser by a 53%-47% margin — closer than the Supreme Court race. 

Additionally, about 76,000 voters did not weigh in on the voter ID amendment.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

DataWatch: Record spending. Record turnout. We crunched some numbers from the Supreme Court contest is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Spending on the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court race approached $100 million or more – in total – according to reports leading up to Election Day.

The WisPolitics news outlet tally was $107 million, including $2 million contributed by billionaire George Soros to the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

The party, in turn, funneled donations to the liberal candidate, Susan Crawford. 

The Brennan Center for Justice tally was $98.6 million, enough to make the nonpartisan Wisconsin contest the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

According to the center, a program at New York University Law School that tracks campaign spending:

The largest amount spent, $28.3 million, was by Crawford’s campaign.

Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel, whose campaign spent $15 million.

Schimel was backed by billionaire Elon Musk. The Musk-founded America PAC spent $12.3 million. That’s also a national record for outside spending in a judicial race.

Social media posts claimed that Soros spent $100 million supporting Crawford.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• WisPolitics: Crawford beats Schimel in nation's most expensive court race
• Brennan Center for Justice: Buying Time 2025 – Wisconsin
• Axios: Wisconsin's Supreme Court election is the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history
• Wisconsin Watch: Has Elon Musk’s PAC in the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race set the record for outside spending on state court elections?
• X: March 27, 2025, post
• X: April 2, 2025, post
• X: March 28, 2025, post
• X: April 1, 2025, post
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Who is George Soros, and how much did he donate to Susan Crawford's winning campaign?
• Forbes: Elon Musk Blamed Wisconsin Supreme Court Result On Billionaire Democratic Spending—But He And Republicans Outspent Them All

Did billionaire George Soros spend $100 million on the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

As the first news outlets began calling the Wisconsin Supreme Court election for the liberal candidate Susan Crawford, her opponent called her — to concede.

Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: “Cheater.”

Schimel didn’t hesitate. “No,” he responded. “You’ve got to accept the results.” Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass.

In any other American era, Schimel’s concession wouldn’t be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation’s politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don’t.

“It shouldn’t be super laudable,” said Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. “But given where we are and given what we’ve seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.”

Accusations of cheating are common now

Over the past several years, numerous Republicans — and some Democrats — have lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud, harassed election officials and pointed to “irregularities” to dispute their election losses. President Donald Trump led that movement in 2020, when he filed lawsuits in battleground states, including one thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Schimel’s concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today’s divisive atmosphere.

Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he’d lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford’s lead grew to around 10 percentage points.

“The numbers aren’t going to — aren’t going to turn around,” he told the crowd. “They’re too bad, and we’re not going to pull this off.”

By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud.

Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they’ve dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat.

Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to “add to political strife through a contentious recount” even as he raised debunked election conspiracies.

In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out.

Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens.

Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the “future of America and Western civilization.”

But after the results came in, he said he “expected to lose” and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin’s Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn’t post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win.

An assessment: ‘That’s democracy’

Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an “algorithm” was behind Crawford’s win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, “Election fraud should be investigated.”

But at Schimel’s watch party, several supporters applauded his high road.

“He was all class,” said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. “That’s how you lose.”

Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state’s congressional districts. “But you can’t exactly change it,” Manka said, calling Schimel “very graceful” in his defeat. “This is democracy.”

Crawford, in an interview Wednesday, said Schimel’s phone call was “the way elections should conclude” and said she would have done the same thing if she had lost.

The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: “We know who won, we know who lost.” He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsin resident, understands that.

“It’s transparent, and we accept the final score,” Mittleman said. “That’s democracy.”

Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride.

“Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?” Schimel said between songs. “Put it on my tab.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Brad Schimel publicly quashes shouts that opponent cheated in Wisconsin Supreme Court race is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Susan Crawford’s win in Tuesday’s record-smashing Wisconsin Supreme Court election paves the way for the court’s liberal majority to continue to flex its influence over state politics.

The Dane County Circuit Court judge’s victory guarantees that liberals will control the court until at least 2028. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is at the center of state politics. It has been since 2020, when it denied Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and has continued to make headlines — especially since flipping to liberal control in August 2023. 

For the past two years, Justices Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz and Ann Walsh Bradley — who collectively make up the court’s liberal majority — have flexed their authority and remade Wisconsin’s political landscape. Crawford, who will be sworn in on Aug. 1, will replace the retiring Walsh Bradley, who has served on the high court for 30 years.

Here’s what Crawford’s victory could mean for some key issues.

1. Abortion rights

The Wisconsin Supreme Court seems poised to, in some form or the other, strike down the state’s 1849 abortion law — which bans almost all abortions in the state.

The court’s current justices in November 2024 heard oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the statute. It was filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul in the days after Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The lawsuit asks the court to determine whether the 1849 law applies to consensual abortions. It also asks whether the 1849 ban was “impliedly repealed” when the Legislature passed additional laws — while Roe was in effect — regulating abortion after fetal viability.

A Dane County judge ruled in late 2023 that the 1849 statute applied to feticide, not consensual abortions. Abortion services, which were halted in the state after Roe was overturned, have since resumed.

Crawford’s opponent, conservative Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, argued during the campaign that the liberal majority was delaying its ruling in the case “to keep the 1849 law a live issue” in the race.

While working in private practice, Crawford represented Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in litigation related to abortion access.

Crawford’s victory on Tuesday ensures the court’s upcoming ruling is likely to remain intact — at least for now — meaning abortion will remain legal in Wisconsin.

2. Congressional redistricting

The liberal majority’s decision to throw out the state’s Republican-gerrymandered legislative maps, breaking a GOP lock on the state Legislature, has been its most influential ruling since taking power. As a result, Democrats picked up 14 seats in the Assembly and state Senate in 2024 in a good Republican year nationwide.

However, during the same time period, the high court denied a request to reconsider the state’s congressional maps without stating a reason. The maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, but under a “least change” directive from a previous conservative court, so they remained GOP-friendly. But in the liberal court’s legislative redistricting decision, it overturned the “least change” precedent. Crawford’s victory opens a window for Democrats and their allies to once again challenge the maps, potentially using the argument that the current lines were drawn under rules that have since been rejected.

The future of the congressional districts were a key issue in this year’s state Supreme Court race. 

Elon Musk, who spent some $20 million to boost Schimel’s candidacy, said at a rally in Green Bay last weekend that a potential redrawing of the maps is what made the race so important.

He called Tuesday’s election “a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Democrats have pushed a similar idea.

The Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, last week called Wisconsin’s congressional lines “broken.”

“As soon as possible we need to be able to revisit that and have fairer lines,” he said during an event with DNC Chair Ken Martin. “The only way for that to be even a significant possibility is if you have an enlightened Supreme Court.”

Crawford’s win makes the court friendlier to a potential congressional redistricting lawsuit.

3. Labor rights

A Dane County judge ruled late last year that provisions of Act 10, a Scott Walker-era law that kneecapped public sector labor unions, violated the state constitution. Under the ruling, all public sector workers would have their collective bargaining restored to what it was before the law took effect in 2011.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in February declined to fast-track an appeal in the case, meaning it must first be decided by a conservative branch of the state Court of Appeals, likely ensuring it won’t come before the high court before the end of the current term.

That means Crawford, who challenged aspects of Act 10 while working as a private attorney, will be on the court when it comes before the justices. 

She didn’t answer directly when asked during the race’s only debate if she would recuse herself from the case. But she did note that the provision currently being challenged is different from the one she brought a lawsuit over.

“If the same provision that I was involved in litigating back in those early days was challenged again, I most likely would recuse,” she said.

But with conservative-leaning Justice Brian Hagedorn having already recused from the case, Crawford could step aside and liberals would still have the votes needed to overturn the law.

4. Environmental issues

The high court is currently also considering a case about enforcement of the state’s “Spills Law.” 

Enacted in 1978, the law requires people or companies discharging a hazardous substance “to restore the environment to the extent practicable and minimize the harmful effects from the discharge to the air, lands or waters of this state.”

The lawsuit was filed by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s powerful business lobby, in 2021. It argued that the DNR could not require people to test for so-called “forever chemicals” contamination — and require remediation if they’re present — because the agency hadn’t gone through the formal process of designating the chemicals, known as PFAS, as “hazardous substances.” The court’s liberal justices seemed skeptical of WMC’s position during oral arguments in January.

WMC has been a perennial spender in state Supreme Court races. It spent some $2 million targeting Crawford during this year’s race.

Any forthcoming ruling in favor of the DNR is likely safe with Crawford on the court. She was endorsed during the campaign by Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

Here’s what Susan Crawford’s state Supreme Court win means for Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.

Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political battles.

Trump, Musk and other Republicans lined up behind Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Crawford.

The first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out $1 million checks to voters.

Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Republicans, referring to Musk as “Elon Schimel” during a debate.

Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who, if elected, would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.

Crawford’s win keeps the court under a 4-3 liberal majority, as it has been since 2023. A liberal justice is not up for election again until April 2028, ensuring liberals will either maintain or increase their hold on the court until then. The two most conservative justices are up for re-election in 2026 and 2027.

The court likely will be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries. Who controls the court also could factor into how it might rule on any future voting challenge in the perennial presidential battleground state, which raised the stakes of the race for national Republicans and Democrats.

Musk and groups he funded poured more than $21 million into the contest. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, campaigned for Schimel in the closing weeks and said electing him was essential to protecting the Republican agenda. Trump endorsed Schimel just 11 days before the election.

Schimel, who leaned into his Trump endorsement in the closing days of the race, said he would not be beholden to the president or Musk despite the massive spending on the race by groups that Musk supports.

Crawford benefitted from campaign stops by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee last year, and money from billionaire megadonors including Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

The contest was the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. That broke the previous record of $51 million for the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023.

All of the spending and attention on the race led to high early voting turnout, with numbers more than 50% higher than the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago.

Crawford was elected to a 10-year term replacing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is retiring after 30 years on the bench.

Wisconsin enshrines voter ID in state constitution

Wisconsin’s photo ID requirement for voting will be elevated from state law to constitutional amendment under a proposal approved by voters.

The Republican-controlled Legislature placed the measure on the ballot and pitched it as a way to bolster election security and protect the law from being overturned in court.

Democratic opponents argued that photo ID requirements are often enforced unfairly, making voting more difficult for people of color, disabled people and poor people.

Wisconsin voters won’t notice any changes when they go to the polls. They will still have to present a valid photo ID just as they have under the state law, which was passed in 2011 and went into effect permanently in 2016 after a series of unsuccessful lawsuits.

Placing the photo ID requirement in the constitution makes it more difficult for a future Legislature controlled by Democrats to change the law. Any constitutional amendment must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions and by a statewide popular vote.

Republican legislators celebrated the measure’s passage.

“This will help maintain integrity in the electoral process, no matter who controls the Legislature,” Sen. Van Wanggaard, who co-authored the amendment, said in a statement.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who is leading Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, also noted the outcome on his social media platform, X, saying: “Yeah!”

Wisconsin is one of nine states where people must present photo ID to vote, and its requirement is the nation’s strictest, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty-six states have laws requiring or requesting that voters show some sort of identification, according to the NCSL.

State schools chief Jill Underly wins reelection over GOP-backed rival

Jill Underly, the Democratic-backed state education chief, defeated her Republican-aligned opponent, Brittany Kinser.

Underly will guide policies affecting K-12 schools as Trump moves to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Her second term comes at a time when test scores are still recovering from the pandemic, Wisconsin’s achievement gap between white and Black students remains the worst in the country and more schools are asking voters to raise property taxes to pay for operations.

Wisconsin is the only state where voters elect the top education official but there is no state board of education. That gives the superintendent broad authority to oversee education policy, from disbursing school funding to managing teacher licensing.

Underly, 47, had the support of the teachers union in the general election after failing to secure it in the three-person primary. She also was backed financially by the state Democratic Party.

Underly, who was first elected as state superintendent in 2021, ran as a champion of public schools. Kinser is a supporter of the private school voucher program.

Underly’s education career began in 1999 as a high school social studies teacher in Indiana. She moved to Wisconsin in 2005 and worked for five years at the state education department. She also was principal of Pecatonica Elementary School for a year before becoming district administrator.

Kinser, whose backers included the Wisconsin Republican Party and former Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker, previously worked for Rocketship schools, part of a national network of public charter institutions. She rose to become its executive director in the Milwaukee region.

In 2022 she left Rocketship for City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee nonprofit that advocates for charter and voucher schools. She also founded a consulting firm where she currently works.

Kinser tried to brand Underly as being a poor manager of the Department of Public Instruction and keyed in on her overhaul of state achievement standards last year.

Underly said that was done to better reflect what students are learning now, but the change was met with bipartisan opposition including from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who was previously state superintendent himself. Evers did not make an endorsement in the race.

High turnout leads to ballot shortage in Milwaukee

Unprecedented turnout led to ballot shortages in Wisconsin’s largest city Tuesday as voters cast ballots in “historic” numbers.

The race for control of the court, which became a proxy battle for the nation’s political fights, broke records for spending and was poised to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever.

Early voting was more than 50% ahead of levels seen in the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago, when majority control was also at stake.

Seven polling sites in Milwaukee ran out of ballots, or were nearly out, due to “historic turnout” and more ballots were on their way before polls closed, said Paulina Gutierrez, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.

Clerks all across the state, including in the city’s deep-red suburbs, reported turnout far exceeding 2023 levels.

A state race with nationwide significance

The court can decide election-related laws and settle disputes over future election outcomes.

“Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin,” Trump said Monday. “Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so therefore the Supreme Court choice … it’s a big race.”

Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Trump, who endorsed Schimel 11 days before the election.

Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.

Voters in Eau Claire seemed to be responding to both messages. Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old retiree, said he voted for Schimel because he’s concerned about redistricting.

Jim Hazelton, a 68-year-old disabled veteran, said he had planned to abstain but voted for Crawford after Musk — whom he described as a “pushy billionaire” — and Trump got involved.

“He’s cutting everything,” Hazelton said of Musk. “People need these things he’s cutting.”

What’s on the court’s agenda?

The court will likely be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

Last year the court declined to take up a Democratic-backed challenge to congressional lines, but Schimel and Musk said that if Crawford wins, the court will redraw congressional districts to make them more favorable to Democrats. Currently Republicans control six out of eight seats in an evenly divided state.

Musk was pushing that message on Election Day, both on TV and the social media platform he owns, X, urging people to cast ballots in the final hours of voting.

There were no major voting issues by midday Tuesday, state election officials said. Severe weather prompted the relocation of some polling places in northern Wisconsin, and some polling places in Green Bay briefly lost power but voting continued. In Dane County, home to the state capital, Madison, election officials said polling locations were busy and operating normally.

Record-breaking donations

The contest is the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Musk contributed $3 million to the campaign, while groups he funded poured in another $18 million. Musk also gave $1 million each to three voters who signed a petition he circulated against “activist” judges.

Schimel leaned into his support from Trump while saying he would not be beholden to the president or Musk. Democrats centered their messaging on the spending by Musk-funded groups.

“Ultimately I think it’s going to help Susan Crawford, because people do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”

Democratic-backed Susan Crawford wins Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, cementing liberal majority is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.