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

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

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

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

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

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

Since the primary, Underly has declined three debate opportunities. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kinser’s campaign ended up declining.

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

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

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

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

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

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford speaks at an event held by the Rotary Club of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Press Club as she campaigns for Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford accused her opponent Brad Schimel of being a “partisan politician” at an event Tuesday hosted by the Rotary Club of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Press Club. Her comments come as both candidates have tried to claim they will be the more impartial justice. 

The fight over impartiality has outlined this year’s campaign in contrast with 2023, when Justice Janet Protasiewicz won her seat, and majority control of the Court for the body’s liberals, by proclaiming her “values” that support a woman’s right to access abortion and that the state’s previous legislative maps unfairly benefited Republicans. 

“I would ask voters and the media to look at the difference between the campaigns and the candidates,” Crawford said. “I have never taken a position on any case or any issue before the Supreme Court. And anyone who wants to support me needs to know that I am not making any promises.” 

But she said Schimel, a Waukesha County judge and former Republican state attorney general, has built a career as an elected Republican and taken stances on cases that will likely come before the Court in its next term, including cases about Wisconsin’s 1849 law that has been interpreted as a blanket ban on abortion and a lawsuit against Act 10, the controversial law that limited collective bargaining rights for most public employees. 

Crawford also pointed to millions of dollars in assistance Schimel’s campaign has gotten from Elon Musk and comments, reported this week by the Washington Post, that he told a group of supporters in Jefferson County that President Donald Trump had been “screwed over” by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it ruled against his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Just days before Schimel’s comments were made public, he told reporters after a speech at a Wisconsin Counties Association conference that he didn’t know enough about the case to determine if it was decided correctly. 

“He apparently has no objection to Elon Musk’s canvassers going door to door, saying that ‘Brad Schimel is going to uphold the Trump agenda,’” she said. “You know, he has not said anything to put a stop to that. So he’s got a long history as an extreme partisan. He’s run for partisan office something like five times, and he’s running this race very much as a partisan politician.” 

Throughout her remarks, Crawford said that if she’s elected, she’d work with all six of the other justices, not just the liberals — taking digs at comments Schimel and some of the Court’s conservatives have made previously — but that she defines being a judicial liberal as someone who stands up for people’s rights and how the law can be used to protect those rights. 

“If what people mean by liberal is that I’m going to work to protect the rights of every Wisconsinite on the Supreme Court, that I view our laws and our Constitution as tools to protect the rights of Wisconsinites, then I embrace that label, because that is what I will go about,” she said.

Last week, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Schimel had said in a radio interview the Court’s liberals, all women, were “driven by their emotions,” when hearing oral arguments in a case about the 1849 abortion law. And in recent years, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley has frequently attacked her liberal colleagues in published decisions, accusing them of being mouthpieces for the Democratic Party. 

“I think there is a little bit too much talk and too much emphasis, particularly by my opponent, on the makeup of the court and these so-called lines between who’s the majority and who’s the minority,” she said. “My opponent, unfortunately, has been lobbying attacks against the same justices on the Supreme Court. You won’t hear me doing that. I intend to work with every other member of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is a body of seven justices, and they need to talk to each other.” 

In a statement, the Schimel campaign said the panel of reporters moderating Tuesday’s event didn’t ask tough enough questions and that Crawford wouldn’t be an objective justice.

“Susan Crawford continued her campaign of hoodwinking Wisconsin voters today by spreading falsehoods and pushing the radical agenda of her Democrat handlers to a sympathetic press,” Schimel spokesperson Jacob Fischer said. “What Crawford should have been pressed on was her weak on crime penchant for releasing pedophiles and murderers back onto Wisconsin streets, her willingness to offer two congressional seats in exchange for financial support, or how she sold out her objectivity to the agendas of George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and other extreme liberals. Unlike Susan Crawford, who is clearly unfit to represent the interests of Wisconsin as an impartial justice, Judge Brad Schimel is committed to restoring fairness to the Court and saving Wisconsin from the Democrats’ radical agenda.”

During the event, Crawford pointed to occasions she would have sided against the Court’s liberals and times she issued rulings that she didn’t personally like but upheld because it was the law. 

She said that when hearing challenges to the lame duck laws passed by Republicans in the Legislature in 2019 to take powers away from the governor and attorney general before Democrats Tony Evers and Josh Kaul could take power, the actions of the Legislature “left a bad taste in my mouth,” but she upheld some of those laws. 

“That’s a case where, as a lawyer, I might have taken a different position as an advocate, but as a judge, I was applying the law to the facts of that case, and I came to a narrow decision,” she said.