Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Maria Lazar says she wants disagreements on the Court to be more respectful. 

At a Tuesday forum hosted by the Marquette University School of Law, Lazar attempted to distance herself from the highly politicized Supreme Court campaigns of recent years, painting herself as an independent judge who, while leaning more conservative than the Court’s current liberal majority, wants to just follow the law. 

However, since her election to the state’s District Two Court of Appeals, Lazar has been a reliably conservative vote on the reliably conservative appellate panel — including a case in which she sided with election deniers attempting to gain access to confidential voter information. Lazar’s campaign has also received endorsements and financial support from high profile Republicans. 

But she says she’s never been a member of a political party, contrasting herself with her opponent, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, who was previously a Democratic member of the state Assembly. State Supreme Court races are nominally nonpartisan, but both political parties have been heavily involved in supporting their preferred candidates in recent years.  

“I am the one on my court that sort of solves the disputes, and I think that on the Supreme Court I would be the same way,” she said. “I know that it would be 3-4, and I know that I’d be in the minority with the more conservative leaning than liberal leaning, and I get that. But the decisions aren’t all 4-to-3. I mean, sometimes they’re 7-0 or 6-1, and I just think that I would bring a level of collegiality, a level of really hard dedication and work.” 

Since the liberal wing of the Court gained the majority with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, the Court’s conservatives — most notably Justice Annette Ziegler and the outgoing Justice Rebecca Bradley — have frequently lobbed personal attacks at the majority in their published opinions, accusing the majority of being partisan lackeys for the Democratic party. 

Lazar said she doesn’t think the Court should work that way. 

“But some of the opinions written by our Court right now, the differences that are going on on that bench, there’s such a level of dissatisfaction with each other and personal animus that when you read those dissents, you say, how can you write something that personal and mean and then go and work the next day and sit across from that person and say, ‘Let’s talk about the next appeal?’” she said. 

Despite her efforts to paint herself as a moderate, Lazar has occasionally shared her agreement with conservative beliefs on abortion. As an attorney for the state Department of Justice under Gov. Scott Walker, Lazar defended Act 10, the law that repealed labor rights for public employees, and argued in favor of gerrymandered maps Republicans drew in 2011, locking in disproportionate GOP legislative majorities. 

“I would never be on that Court to be a firebrand,” Lazar said Tuesday. “I would be on that Court to stand up for what I believe in and what I believe the law says.” 

At the forum, Lazar said she can’t share with voters how she would decide hypothetical cases, but she can share “what I believe in and what I stand for.” The remark closely mirrors statements Protasiewicz made about her political beliefs during her 2023 campaign. Those remarks have followed Protasiewicz onto the bench, with Republicans often raising them to demand that she recuse herself from controversial cases. 

On her judicial philosophy, Lazar said she’s “an originalist with a slight tinge of textualism.” 

Originalism is a legal theory that emerged in the 1980s and has become the dominant ideology of conservative justices across the country. Under the theory, judges argue that laws should be interpreted through the intent and context of the law when it was written — attempting to glean the motivations of the country’s constitutional framers 250 years after the fact. Critics argue that originalists often use flawed historical analysis. 

But at the forum, Lazar gave a different meaning to originalism. 

“Originalist means that if you get the statute or the law or the constitutional amendment or whatever it is, you look at it first, and if you can’t answer the question, which you probably can’t, because why is it in front of your court if it’s so obvious? So you look at it, and then you look at headings. You look at statutes around it, you look at other statutes in the law. You start looking around. And that’s originalism. You’re looking at the words as they’re written,” she said. 

Lazar said that trying to determine the intent of legislators gets dangerous. 

“Now, some judicial philosophies go all the way out. And they look at everything, what people say when they write the laws, what their intent was, and that’s a little dangerous,” she said. “To me, that’s judicial activism, because I see judges and justices who get to the end result in their mind and then find a way to get there. That’s not the proper way to look at the law, and that’s not what we do. We don’t legislate on the bench. We’re not activists. We don’t have agendas.” 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 6 minutes

In 2022, a student-led voting advocacy organization sued in Dane County to clarify which parts of a witness’ address must appear on an absentee ballot envelope. What was accepted differed from city to city. 

The 4th District Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Chris Taylor, affirmed a lower court ruling that a witness only needs to provide an address where that person can “be communicated with.” The Legislature, which had appealed, argued a precise, multipart address is necessary to prevent election fraud. 

“The legislature could have required such specificity for the absentee ballot witness address requirement when it initially adopted the witness address requirement in 1966 or in subsequent modifications of the absentee voting statutes,” wrote Taylor, a liberal candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April.

Taylor’s campaign shared that decision as a prime example of the kind of justice she would be on the high court. The campaign for her opponent, conservative appeals court Judge Maria Lazar, shared that exact same decision as a prime example of why Taylor shouldn’t be on the high court.

As Wisconsinites head to the polls in just two months to elect another state Supreme Court justice, Wisconsin Watch asked the Lazar and Taylor campaigns separately to provide examples of rulings in past cases that show how they might serve as a justice and decisions from their opponents that warrant criticism. 

That both campaigns shared the otherwise mundane witness address case speaks to the deep ideological divide that persists in the state judiciary. Campaigns can point to the outcomes of politically charged cases, such as those related to voting rights, gun rights or abortion, as a way to point voters to what their views are, legal experts said.

“To me, those are very subtle signals as to their constituency that the impact of this decision, one way or another, is consistent with your views,” said Janine Geske, who served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1993 to 1998. 

A spokesperson for Taylor’s campaign said the case demonstrates how Taylor protected Democratic rights and “fairly” and “impartially” applies the law. 

“This decision balanced protecting each Wisconsinite’s right to vote with establishing a fair, uniform procedure for our local clerks,” Taylor campaign spokesman Sam Roecker said. “As indicative of the strength of this decision, no party involved in the case appealed Judge Taylor’s decision.” 

Lazar’s campaign said Taylor failed to consider the intent of the Legislature. 

“Judge Taylor’s opinion, on the merits, indicates how far an activist judge who legislates from the bench will go to alter procedures for election integrity,” Lazar campaign spokesman Nathan Conrad said of the witness address case. “Every common sense citizen in Wisconsin knows that an address consists of a street name, number and municipality.” 

Other significant cases from the judges

The other judicial rulings the candidates’ campaigns shared with Wisconsin Watch also showcase the candidates’ contrasting judicial philosophies.

Lazar’s campaign pointed to her opinions that show her being tough on crime and supportive of Second Amendment rights. One was a Waukesha County case where she ruled that a man who pleaded guilty to child enticement and mental harm could not withdraw his guilty plea. In the other case she ruled that the city of Delafield could not deny an operating permit for a shooting range. 

In addition to the voting rights case, Taylor’s campaign highlighted rulings that favored utility consumers and reproductive health. In one decision the court determined the Public Service Commission did not follow proper rulemaking procedures when it prohibited activities companies use to incentivize lower energy use. In the other opinion Taylor wrote that a woman could continue seeking legal action against a physician she claimed did not inform her of a recommendation to another doctor to remove her ovaries during a colon surgery. The Wisconsin Supreme Court last May affirmed that decision with Justice Brian Hagedorn joining the liberal justices in the majority.

The different political focuses between the candidates is no surprise given their different professional and political paths prior to their time on the bench. Lazar, a conservative, was an assistant attorney general under Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen before her election to the Waukesha County Circuit Court in 2015. Taylor worked as a policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and served five terms as a Democrat in the Assembly before Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020.

The judicial rulings they highlighted as reflecting poorly on their opponent are nothing like those featured in the multimillion-dollar Supreme Court campaigns of recent years, when both sides sought to paint the other as lax on crime and public safety. 

While there are still two months to go, it’s possible the race will stay muted because the stakes are different with no Supreme Court majority on the line, said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Neither outcome will change liberal control of the court, though because the winner will replace retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, it could extend guaranteed liberal control until at least 2030.

The quiet nature of the race is “bizarre” given the increasingly political direction Wisconsin Supreme Court elections have gone in the past, Schweber said.

“There is not invective. There is not screaming accusations,” Schweber said. “This may all change over the course of the election, but at least at the moment, we’re not seeing over-the-top ads making hysterical accusations, and it appears that at least part of the reason for that might be that neither campaign can find anything particularly embarrassing that the opposing candidate has done.” 

Some criticisms from each campaign are still there and could grow stronger as Election Day nears. In a recent social media post seeking campaign contributions, Lazar’s campaign described Taylor not as a judge, but a “radical left-wing legislator.” Taylor’s campaign in a post following the release of January campaign finance reports described Lazar as “our extreme opponent.” 

Lazar and Taylor will face each other in a March 25 debate hosted by WISN-TV at the Lubar Center at Marquette University’s Law School. 

Which cases did the campaigns share?

Taylor’s campaign shared the following cases with Wisconsin Watch as examples of how Taylor would serve as a justice: 

• Midwest Renewable Energy Association v. Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (the utility case). (Read the opinion here.) 
• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• Melissa A. Hubbard v. Carol J. Neuman, M.D. (the ovary removal case). (Read the opinion here.)

The campaign criticized a 2024 appellate opinion written by Lazar that contradicted a ruling from another appeals court branch on whether a conservative group questioning the 2020 election results could access health information about individuals who were judged incapable of voting. Lazar and another judge on the 2nd District Court of Appeals released an opinion that said the group had a right to the information after the 4th District’s opposite ruling was published as precedent.

The opinion shows Lazar “is an extremist who uses our courts to protect special interests and push her right-wing agenda,” Roecker said. 

“Lazar completely ignored recent precedent that private voter data could not be released to the public,” Roecker said. “That should alarm anyone who believes in protecting our democracy and fair elections.” 

Lazar’s campaign in response to that criticism said the dual appeals court opinions were about “issues of procedure” when two districts disagree. The 2nd District revised the opinion at the request of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which then accepted the case, Conrad said. It is scheduled for oral arguments before the high court in April. 

Lazar’s campaign shared the following cases as examples of how Lazar would serve as a justice: 

• Saybrook Tax Exemptors, LLC. v. Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, et. al.: Lazar concluded that certain agreements and documents between a financial company and the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe about plans for a casino were void. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Scherer: Lazar ruled that law enforcement’s seizure of a man’s cellphone that possessed child pornography was too broad and violated his privacy rights, despite the “egregious” potential crime. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Flores (the child enticement case). (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Heinz: Lazar denied a request to modify the sentence of a woman who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she was charged with first-degree reckless homicide. (Read the decision here.)
• Hartland Sportsman Club v. City of Delafield (the gun range case). (Read the decision here.)
• Pewaukee Land County, LLC. v. Soo Line Railroad: Lazar ruled that a company could not claim ownership of property in Pewaukee that belonged to the Canadian Pacific railroad, but did not block the company’s current use of the property. (Read the decision here.)
• Craig, et. al. v. Village of West Bend: Lazar dismissed a case about the transfer of cemetery property that already had been decided in an earlier case. (Read the decision here.) 

Lazar’s campaign shared two cases as criticism of Taylor’s judicial opinions:

• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• State v. Kruckenberg Anderson: In an opinion written by Taylor, the 4th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that suppressed certain statements a teenager made to law enforcement prior to being charged with killing his newborn child. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a petition to review the case in 2024. (Read the Court of Appeals opinion here.)

Judicial philosophies clash as both Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates point to same case to highlight their fitness for the high 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A November fundraising email paid for and sent by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s Democratic campaign for governor included a message signed by “Team Taylor,” the campaign of Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, who is running in the nonpartisan April race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 

The note describes the power the next governor will have and how the court can be a “check” on the person in that office. It ends with an appeal: “Will you split a contribution of $10 between our campaign and David Crowley to help elect Judge Chris Taylor and protect a fair, independent Wisconsin Supreme Court?”

The fundraising message is one of potentially thousands of emails Wisconsinites may receive from campaigns seeking donations ahead of pivotal elections next year. But it also raises questions about why asks from nonpartisan campaigns can appear in a partisan candidate’s fundraising materials and whether a message, like the one from Crowley’s campaign featuring  Taylor’s team, can seem like an endorsement.

Taylor has not, in fact, endorsed Crowley, who is running in a crowded Democratic primary field for governor next August. Crowley has endorsed Taylor, a liberal who is running against conservative Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar in the April election. 

Though the joint fundraising belies Wisconsin’s nonpartisan-in-name — though increasingly partisan-in-practice — Supreme Court elections, the communication doesn’t raise ethical or legal issues, experts told Wisconsin Watch. Additionally, a fundraising email like this is not unusual in the context of Wisconsin’s recent Supreme Court elections, said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In fact, Wisconsin’s main political parties were the top donors to the campaigns of the liberal and conservative candidates in the record-breaking 2025 Supreme Court race, with Democrats giving $11.75 million to now-Justice Susan Crawford’s campaign and Republicans sending $9.76 million to the campaign of former Attorney General Brad Schimel.  

“This is just yet another data point, number 115, demonstrating that these are, in fact, partisan campaigns run … at least in some cases, by candidates who present themselves as representatives of a party,” Schweber said.

Since its founding, Wisconsin has tried to keep judicial races nonpartisan. Justices are supposed to interpret the law and constitution like a referee, not side with one team or the other. But over the past 20 years, as hot-button political issues have come before the court and spending from political interest groups has reached astronomical heights, that tradition has eroded.

Taylor and Lazar are the likely candidates in the court race in April and are on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum. Taylor is a former Dane County judge who served as a Democrat in the state Assembly and was a policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Lazar is a former Waukesha County judge who was an assistant attorney general under a Republican administration.

Wisconsin prohibits judges and judicial candidates from endorsing partisan political candidates or directly soliciting campaign donations. During the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed an ethics complaint against Schimel after reports that he joked about buying knee pads to ask for campaign donations. 

The message sent by the Crowley campaign is a different scenario, as the text is signed by “Team Taylor,” not Taylor herself. Taylor has not endorsed any political candidates or directly solicited donations in her campaign for the Supreme Court, Sam Roecker, a spokesperson for Taylor’s campaign, told Wisconsin Watch.  

Messages Taylor’s campaign sends to its list of email subscribers can be shared by other political campaigns with their own fundraising lists, such as in the case of the Crowley email. 

“Other campaigns, regardless of party, who believe in electing a justice who will protect our fundamental rights and freedoms, are welcome to amplify our messages to their supporters,” said Roecker, the Taylor spokesperson. 

It’s not clear whether other Democrats running for governor may have shared fundraising messages from the Taylor campaign. Only Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch with a simple “nope.”

Lazar’s campaign has not sent fundraising messages with candidates running for partisan offices, a spokesperson said. 

Ahead of the 2025 court race, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in a campaign email promoted Schimel’s candidacy. But the message was signed by Tiffany rather than anyone connected to Schimel’s campaign.

A spokesperson for Crowley’s campaign said Democrats believe it’s “critical” to elect Taylor to the high court — which was the reasoning behind the campaign message.

“The Crowley campaign sent a fundraising email to support her campaign and highlight the importance of this race, recognizing the natural overlap between the two candidates,” the spokesperson said. 

Political activities during a Wisconsin Supreme Court campaign can resurface once a candidate is elected. Earlier this year, Crawford was criticized for attending a briefing with Democratic donors with a discussion on putting two of Wisconsin’s U.S. House seats “in play.” 

In November the justice denied a request from Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen that she recuse herself from cases challenging the state’s congressional maps based on attending that meeting.

As fundraising email shows, line between nonpartisan and partisan Wisconsin elections continues to erode 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A conservative Wisconsin appeals court judge announced Wednesday that she is running for an open seat on the battleground state’s Supreme Court, promising to stop the politicization of the courts after record-high spending in the last race, fueled by billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros.

Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, formerly a prosecutor for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, is the first conservative to enter the race, which will be decided in April. Liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former Democratic state lawmaker, also is running.

Conservative candidates for the high court have lost each of the past two elections by double-digit margins. Both of those races broke national spending records, and a liberal won in April despite spending by Musk, who campaigned for the conservative and handed out $1 million checks to three supporters.

Lazar, 61, said she was disturbed by the massive spending and partisan politics of those races. Both the Republican and Democratic parties were heavily involved in the last campaign.

“We must stop the politicization of our courts,” Lazar said in a campaign launch video.

Lazar pitched herself as an “independent, impartial judge” who will “stop the destruction of our courts.” She also promised “never to be swayed by political decisions” when ruling.

Taylor’s campaign manager, Ashley Franz, said Lazar would be “the most extreme member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” if elected.

In her run for the appeals court, Lazar was endorsed by several Republicans who sought to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat in Wisconsin.

That includes former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has agreed to have his law license suspended over wrongdoing related to his discredited investigation into the 2020 presidential election.

Lazar was also endorsed by former Trump attorney Jim Troupis, who faces felony charges for his role advising Republican electors who tried to cast Wisconsin’s ballots for Trump after he lost. One of those electors, Wisconsin Elections Commission member Bob Spindell, previously backed Lazar.

Pro-Life Wisconsin also endorsed Lazar, calling her “the only choice for pro-life voters.” Taylor formerly worked for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and, as a lawmaker, was one of the Legislature’s most vocal supporters of abortion rights.

Liberal candidates have won four of the past five Supreme Court races, resulting in a 4-3 majority in 2023, ending a 15-year run of conservative control. If liberals lose the April election, they would still maintain their majority until at least 2028. If they win in April, it would increase to 5-2.

Several high-profile issues could make their way to the court in the coming months, including cases involving abortion, collective bargaining rights, congressional redistricting and election rules.

The race is open after incumbent conservative Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley announced in August that she would not seek another 10-year term.

Lazar, in her launch video, contrasted herself with Taylor by saying she “has always been a politician first.”

She noted that she was appointed as a Dane County circuit judge by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2020, without any prior experience on the bench. Taylor won election to the circuit court in 2021 and to the appeals court in 2023.

Lazar will start at a financial disadvantage. Taylor’s campaign said in August that she had already raised more than $1 million.

Lazar, who has been on the state court of appeals since 2022, worked in private practice for 20 years before joining the state Department of Justice as an assistant attorney general in 2011.

During her four years there, she was involved in several high-profile cases, including defending a law under then-Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers. Known as Act 10, the statute was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2011 at a time when conservative justices controlled it.

A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional but put that decision on hold pending appeal. It could end up before the state’s high court, raising questions about whether Lazar could hear it, given her previous involvement.

Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.

Lazar left the Justice Department after being elected circuit court judge in Waukesha in 2015. She held that post until being elected to the state appeals court.

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.

Conservative Wisconsin appeals court judge Maria Lazar is running for state 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.