Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, but stopped short of requiring his return.
The high court said the Trump administration must try to bring back Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, who was deported due to an “administrative error” admitted by the Trump administration.
The high court did not give the administration a date by which to return Abrego Garcia, saying the deadline in a District of Columbia court order has expired. The Supreme Court said the district court also needs to clarify what it meant by saying the administration must “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia and the scope of that term is “unclear” and may exceed the district court’s authority.
The Trump administration has repeatedly rejected retrieving Abrego Garcia from prison. President Donald Trump and other high-ranking officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a MS-13 gang member, but produced no evidence and have defended his deportation, despite admitting his removal was a mistake.
“We don’t want them back,” Trump said April 8, referencing the case. “Can you imagine, you spend all of that time, energy and money on getting them out, and then you have a judge that sits there… (saying), he said, ‘No, bring him back.’”
It’s unclear how long Abrego Garcia will remain in the prison unless he is returned to the U.S., but El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said based on the $6 million agreement between his country and the U.S., those men at the prison will remain there for at least a year.
Bukele is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House Monday.
Effect on other prisoners
Thursday’s decision may have ramifications for the 238 Venezuelans who were deported to the same prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
They were sent there under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law their attorneys say denied them due process because those subject to it were not able to challenge their removal in court.
The Supreme Court will allow, for now, the continued removal of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, but those subject to a presidential proclamation issued by Trump citing the Alien Enemies Act must be given notice of their removal under the wartime law and a court hearing. The court action also must be in the locations where they are incarcerated.
Arrested while driving son
The Abrego Garcia case garnered national attention when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while driving his 5-year-old son home. Abrego Garcia was not charged with an offense, but was apprehended by ICE because his “status had changed.”
In 2019 Abrego Garcia was given a final order of removal, but an immigration judge granted him protection from removal to his home country because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he was returned, according to court documents.
But on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador.
The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and therefore cannot be returned to the United States.
There is precedent from the U.S. government to return an immigrant accidentally deported, including U.S. citizens. Between fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2020, ICE accidentally deported 70 U.S. citizens who needed to be returned, according to a 2021 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
People demonstrate in support of federal workers outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Fired federal probationary workers saw setbacks this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeals court dealt blows in two separate cases, leaving the newly hired or recently promoted employees hit by the administration’s mass firings once again in limbo.
In a case that affected up to 24,000 fired probationary employees across 17 federal agencies, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday blocked a lower court order requiring the government to rehire the workers.
A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to stay the order, writing that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.”
Judge Allison Rushing, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, directed the order, with Judge James Wilkinson, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, concurring. Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, dissented.
The case centered on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia, who allege economic harm because the federal government did not provide legally required warning ahead of an influx of unemployed state residents.
Federal Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on April 2 requiring the government to rehire thousands of workers who either lived or reported to work only in the 19 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia while the case moved forward. They included:
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
The affected agencies included:
The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The case marked the first time the government provided the number of probationary employees fired at each agency.
Bredar required the figures from the government to show compliance with his mid-March emergency order that the agencies reinstate the workers. The documents showed that the majority of the employees were not recalled to active duty, but placed on administrative leave.
Supreme Court action
In the second case bearing on fired federal workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a lower court order mandating the federal government reinstate the jobs of 16,000 fired probationary federal workers across six agencies.
The unsigned two-page order stated the nine nonprofits that brought the case do not have legal standing. The justices did not address the question at the center of the lawsuit: whether the firings were illegal.
The Trump administration had escalated the case to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket after the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit denied the government’s request to block the agencies from rehiring the employees.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California extended his temporary emergency order on March 13, mandating the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs reinstate employees who were fired under a directive from the Office of Personnel Management as part of an agenda by President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.
As the case continues on the lower court track, lawyers for the American Federal of Government Employees, AFL-CIO faced the Trump administration in court Wednesday before Alsup, a Clinton appointee. Alsup ordered both to provide more information by the end of the day Friday, including a comprehensive list of those fired and statements about economic harms.
The co-founder of Wisconsin’s progressive, pro-democracy law firm is not ignoring the tsunami of bad news out of Washington. He’s just not letting it drown his optimism.
Jeff Mandell | Photo courtesy of Law Forward
“I don’t think any of us fully anticipated how heavy, broad, fast and extreme the onslaught was going to be,” Jeff Mandell concedes, referring to President Donald Trump’s moves to seize unprecedented power, weaponize the federal government against his political enemies, defy court orders, deport people without due process and throw the entire global economy into chaos.
“Some of what we are seeing and hearing is so contrary to our most fundamental understanding of what we believe about our government, I have to believe this is temporary and that people won’t stand for it,” Mandell says.
Since its founding in October 2020, Law Forward has pursued high-profile lawsuits that have helped claw back democracy in Wisconsin. The firm challenged the state’s now-defunct gerrymandered voting maps and uncovered the details of the fake electors scheme that originated here — forcing the Republican officials who posed as members of the Electoral College and cast fraudulent votes for Trump in 2020 to admit they were trying to subvert the will of the voters. On the public website it created to display the details of the scheme, which it obtained as a condition of a settlement, Law Forward stated that it wanted to show “how close our democracy came to toppling and how the freedom to vote must continue to be protected, not taken for granted.”
This week, Law Forward’s grievance against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for misconduct in his ill-conceived “investigation” of voter fraud in the 2020 election led to the suspension of Gableman’s law license.
As a Wisconsin-based organization, Mandell says Law Forward looks for opportunities to pursue cases that are of particular importance to the state and that shine a light on threats to democracy.
“The rest of the time we don’t sit in paralysis because of the news,” he adds. Whatever fresh hell is erupting across the country, “we continue to work here so people see an alternative.”
“I think building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance,” he adds.
“When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level,” at the state and local level, Mandell says, “we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance.”
Even before Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel last week in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — despite the heavy-handed intervention of Trump and Elon Musk — Mandell was feeling hopeful. He felt Wisconsin showed a “silver lining” after the November 2024 election, despite Trump’s narrow win in the state.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford thanks supporters after winning the race Tuesday for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Among his reasons for optimism: New, fair voting maps that replaced the old Republican gerrymander, creating a more balanced Legislature; a governor who supports voting rights and democratic institutions; extraordinarily high voter engagement, with Wisconsinites turning out in bigger numbers than in other states in 2024 and overwhelmingly rejecting the MAGA-backed Supreme Court candidate in 2025.
With Crawford’s win, “Wisconsin will continue to be a place where we can rely on the courts to protect our fundamental freedoms,” Mandell says.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
The 10-point margin in last week’s election also “reinforces my conviction that the majority of Wisconsinites really do believe in democracy,” Mandell says.
All of those things position Wisconsin to be a leader in the struggle to protect democracy from the Trump onslaught.
Wisconsin’s long march to recovery from misrule by Gov. Scott Walker and the rightwing billionaires who backed him has been taking us in the opposite direction from the rest of the country.
Along with his union-busting Act 10 — challenged by Law Forward and soon to be taken up by the Wisconsin Supreme Court — Walker took a sledgehammer to funding for public education, long before Trump and Musk arrived with their chainsaws. Voters here have been pushing back against the billionaire-financed destruction of civil society for more than a decade. Recently, they’ve been gaining traction. Law Forward has played an important role in that fight.
It’s not just that Democrats will pick up more seats in the state Legislature as the un-gerrymandered maps go into full effect next year, Mandell has hope that our closely divided state will maintain its longstanding independence and commitment to bipartisan institutions. He draws encouragement from the fact that Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are holding budget hearings around the state, even as Republicans in Washington ram through a budget based on Trump’s demands, ignoring the public and ceding their power as members of Congress.
Wisconsin’s long tradition of good government includes a host of bipartisan commissions, a decentralized elections system that is hard to hack and a great university that has managed to survive waves of attacks by McCarthyites and budget cutters for 176 years.
That tradition extends to a bipartisan nominating commission for federal judges, which ought to choose a replacement for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, who announced in March that she is taking semi-retirement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office reports it has been in contact with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s office to reconstitute the charter for the bipartisan nominating commission, as they have done in every Congress under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump could still ignore the process and nominate someone on his own. But three weeks after Sykes’ announcement, he hasn’t done it yet.
If Trump wrecks the economy and steers the whole country into a recession, Wisconsin won’t be spared. Nor can we avoid all the shocks of a national authoritarian regime. But our state’s independent democratic institutions leave us well situated to recover, and to help the rest of the country remember what civil society looks like.
“There is no one silver bullet,” says Mandell. “But the goal is to continue to tend the lamp here in Wisconsin, to shine a light that illuminates the path to balance, order and democracy.”
Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Federal judges in Texas and New York Wednesday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in parts of those two states where Venezuelans set for deportation are incarcerated.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed cases in the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Texas, after the U.S. Supreme Court this week deemed challenges to the wartime law must be brought in the location of those subject to President Donald Trump’s proclamation on use of the act. The cases earlier were argued in the District of Columbia.
That Monday decision from the high court lifted a lower court’s order that barred the Trump administration from invoking the wartime law to deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 or older who are suspected gang members — but the justices also said unanimously that the Venezuelans must be allowed court hearings.
Texas Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the deportation of Venezuelans in the entire state of Texas under the Alien Enemies Act, as well as the facility where the three men who brought the case are currently detained, the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville.
The restraining order from Rodriguez Jr. is in place until April 23. The order also states that the three Venezuelan men cannot be removed from the El Valle Detention Center, which is the same center from which the Trump administration on March 15 transferred those subject to the wartime law and placed them on a plane to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
New York order
The temporary restraining order from New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein that he plans to sign Wednesday would cover Venezuelans in the Southern District of New York, according to The Associated Press. That would include New York City, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties.
Two Venezuelans brought the suit in the Southern District of New York.
Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, will hold an April 22 hearing to determine if the temporary restraining order should become a preliminary injunction. The ACLU is also pushing for a class certification.
The Supreme Court said this week it will allow, for now, the Trump administration to use the Alien Enemies Act, but those subject to the proclamation must be allowed to bring a challenge in court.
The original suit against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act came from five men detained in Texas. The justices argued that the proper court venue should be where they were being detained in Texas rather than before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
More than 238 Venezuelans have been deported to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT.
Marylander’s case cited
Judge Rodriguez Jr., whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017, in placing the temporary restraining order noted that anyone who is erroneously deported under the Alien Enemies Act potentially cannot be returned to the United States.
In his reasoning, he cited the Trump administration’s stance in a high-profile case that led to a Maryland man being sent to a prison in El Salvador by mistake.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to strike down a lower court’s order that officials return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, who had a 2019 court order barring his removal to El Salvador. On Monday the Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline until the high court could make a full decision.
“Furthermore, if the United States erroneously removed an individual to another country based on the Proclamation, a substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned to the United States,” Rodriguez Jr. wrote.
A hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in the Brownsville division, is set for Friday 1:30 p.m. Central.
Rodriguez said of the upcoming Friday hearing, “the Court will consider whether to extend the temporary restraining order or issue other forms of emergency relief.”
Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
This story was updated at 10:16 a.m. EDT on April 9.
WASHINGTON — Two dozen Democratic senators Tuesday demanded the Trump administration return to the United States a Maryland father who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by mistake.
Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.
“Your unwillingness to immediately rectify this ‘administrative error’ is unacceptable,” according to the letter addressed to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Court battle
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
A full decision by the high court on whether the Trump administration would be required to return him is expected this week, and it could have implications for the more than 250 men who have been taken to the prison.
The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, despite paying El Salvador $6 million to detain him, along with other immigrants deported.
Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with reporters Tuesday outside the White House, and said she did not agree with the lower or appeals court orders to require the U.S. to return Abrego Garcia.
“We believe he should stay where he is,” she said.
Bondi also placed the DOJ attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.
‘Need for due process’
An appeals court Monday unanimously upheld an order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that the administration return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by midnight Monday.
The 24 Democratic senators and one independent argued the Trump administration should comply with the order by Xinis.
“The Administration’s mass deportation agenda does not transcend immigration law or the need for due process,” according to the letter.
“And when the Administration makes a mistake as severe as sending an individual with protected status to a foreign prison, it cannot simply shrug off responsibility and allege that there is nothing it can do to reunite him with his wife and child, who are American citizens,” according to the letter.
The letter also requires Noem and ICE to answer several questions and return answers by April 22.
The senators ask why the agency and ICE are not working to return a wrongly deported individual, as the agencies have done so in the past and why Trump officials like the vice president and White House press secretary continue to label Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, as a gang member without evidence.
The letter also asks for a copy of the contract agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. to detain the immigrants at CECOT.
List of senators
The 24 Senate Democrats on the letter besides Van Hollen included Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Peter Welch of Vermont; Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California; Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Cory Booker of New Jersey; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Gary Peters of Michigan; and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont also signed the letter.
Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
This story was updated at 10:24 a.m. EDT, April 8
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday said the Trump administration could continue for now to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out rapid deportations of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members — but they must be given a chance to challenge their deportations in court.
The 5-4 decision, which lifted a temporary restraining order by a District of Columbia federal judge, will allow the Trump administration to deport Venezuelans 14 and older who are suspected of Tren de Aragua gang ties, in a victory for the administration of President Donald Trump.
But those immigrants who are subject to the wartime law must have “reasonable notice” in order to challenge their deportation in court “before such removal occurs,” according to the order. The question is which court.
The order argues that the venue of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia is wrong, and that the challenge, which was originally brought by five men in Texas, should be made in the Lone Star State. The challenge is no longer brought by five men and is now a class action.
“The detainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of the Proclamation and against their removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” according to the Supreme Court. “They challenge the Government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments.”
The president praised the decision, which did not address the merits of the actual law, on social media.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump wrote. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”
Dissenting justices
The three liberal justices dissented: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The fourth dissent, in part, came from Amy Coney Barrett, who is considered a member of the court’s six-justice conservative majority.
“The Court’s legal conclusion is suspect,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
She added that the majority opinion did not note the harm that could come to the Venezuelans who could face deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. Already, 238 men have been subject to the proclamation and are currently in a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, the Terrorist Confinement Center or CECOT.
“It does so without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation,” she said. “Because the Court should not reward the Government’s efforts to erode the rule of law with discretionary equitable relief, I respectfully dissent.”
A preliminary injunction hearing against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was set for Tuesday afternoon but U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg canceled the hearing in light of the decision of the high court.
That hearing was set to deal with the administration’s use of the law. Instead, Boasberg is setting a deadline of April 16 for the civil rights group that brought the suit to file a notice “indicating whether they believe that they still have a basis to proceed on their Motion for Preliminary Injunction in this Court.”
This was the second decision from the high court Monday that sided with the Trump administration.
Earlier, Chief Justice John Roberts decided to temporarily pause a lower court’s order to require the Trump administration to return to the United States a Maryland man wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador.
Appeal to the high court
The Trump administration March 28 appealed to the Supreme Court after an appeals court declined to do away with the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg.
Boasberg had extended his temporary restraining order until April 12 to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals, invoked by Trump with a presidential proclamation on March 14.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit against the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law. The legal organization asked the Supreme Court to keep the temporary restraining order in place because “it is becoming increasingly clear that many (perhaps most) of the men” who were on the March 15 deportation flights to the prison in El Salvador “were not actually members of” the Tren de Aragua and were “erroneously listed” due to their tattoos.
The same day that Boasberg issued his restraining order, on March 15, three deportation flights landed in El Salvador, where 261 men were taken to the mega-prison.
Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order by asking for flight details but the Department of Justice has invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege” to block any information.
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.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley said this week she’ll seek another 10-year term on the Court next year.
Bradley’s announcement came just days after Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points in the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history. Crawford’s victory gave the Court’s liberals control of the majority until at least 2028. Bradley told WisPolitics that she will run again to “ensure that there is a voice for the constitution and for the rule of law to preserve that in the state of Wisconsin.”
“I’m concerned for what an extremely radical court is going to do over the next three years, and I will be spending the next several weeks assessing what happened on Tuesday and figuring out a path to achieving a court that is not led by and dominated by the radical left, that gets back to deciding cases under the law and respecting the constitution,” Bradley said.
Liberals have now won four of the last five state Supreme Court elections, all by double digits. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that appeals court judge and former Democratic lawmaker Chris Taylor is considering challenging Bradley in next year’s race.
Schimel and former Justice Dan Kelly have lost the last three Supreme Court elections after arguing that their liberal opponents are partisan ideologues seeking to legislate from the bench.
Bradley was first appointed to the Court by Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and elected to a full term in 2016. In recent years she’s been one of the Court’s most right-wing justices.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she compared restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of the disease to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and she sided with President Donald Trump in his unsuccessful effort to have the Court throw out the results of the 2020 election.
She has often written in her dissents against Court decisions about her belief that the liberal majority is acting politically and said the Court’s liberals are “pursuing a political agenda.”
Prisoners sit at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a mega-prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4, 2025. The Trump administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland resident from El Salvador with protected status to the prison but is arguing against returning him to the U.S. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
This story was updated at 4:34 p.m. Eastern.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration’s request Monday to block a lower court’s order to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The order from Chief Justice John Roberts that stays a lower court order “pending further order of The Chief Justice or of the Court” came hours after another appeals court upheld an order to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, to the United States.
Roberts’ order is not final, but pauses the lower court’s order to return Abrego Garcia while the justices reach a final decision on that order’s validity.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told reporters Friday she hoped her husband would be returned to the U.S. by the midnight Monday deadline set by a federal judge.
The Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday, where U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that, despite the government’s admitted error in deporting Abrego Garcia, the lower court does not have the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to return someone who the administration argues is no longer in U.S. custody.
The appeal to the high court came within minutes of an appeals court panel unanimously upholding the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who set a deadline of midnight Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
Despite being granted legal protection from deportation by a judge in 2019, immigration officials detained Abrego Garcia and sent him on a March 15 deportation flight to El Salvador, where he was incarcerated at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
‘The government screwed up’
A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was a major misstep.
“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,” two judges on the panel, Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker, wrote.
King was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and Thacker was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
“The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable,” they wrote.
J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his option that “[t]here is no question that the government screwed up here.”
He noted that President Donald Trump’s administration has not made an effort to rectify its mistake.
“The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson said.
The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision and Xinis issued a scathing 22-page order Sunday that cited records and official statements from Trump officials saying the administration has the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” she wrote. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
Abrego Garcia was on one of three deportation flights to CECOT on March 15. Two flights contained 238 Venezuelans who were deported under a wartime law that is currently being challenged in another court case.
Xinis slammed the Trump administration for arguing that she had no jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia’s return.
“For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law,” she said. “Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
She noted that the two countries have an agreement to house more than 250 deported men at CECOT.
The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at the prison. Trump is scheduled to meet with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14.
In response to the district court’s order to return Abrego Garcia, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted a GIF of a confused cartoon bunny on social media.
Attorney placed on leave
The Department of Justice attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, was placed on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview Sunday that Reuveni was placed on leave because he did not “vigorously” defend the administration.
Reuveni, a veteran government attorney, has argued for the DOJ over the course of four administrations.
During Friday’s hearing he was candid that the Trump administration had provided him little information on why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the U.S. and that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”
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.
“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.
For the first time since 2015, a liberal has been elected chief justice of Wisconsin's Supreme Court. Outgoing Justice Ann Walsh Bradley will take the helm for the next two months before retiring and will be succeeded by fellow liberal Justice Jill Karofsky for the remainder of the two-year term.
The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments in 2023. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case related to a statewide literacy program that considers Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto power and lawmakers’ handling of emergency funds.
The case comes as the result of the last state budget and efforts by state lawmakers, Gov. Tony Evers and the Department of Public Instruction to overhaul literacy programs in Wisconsin.
During the 2023-25 budget cycle, lawmakers placed $50 million aside in an emergency fund controlled by the Joint Finance Committee that was meant to go towards funding new literacy programs. Lawmakers also passed AB 321 — now 2023 Wisconsin Act 20 — to establish the policy portions of the initiative, which included creating a new office in the Department of Public Instruction and instructing the agency to hire literacy coaches and create a grant program.
Lawmakers subsequently passed SB 971, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 100, to create a mechanism for DPI to spend the money when the funds were transferred. A partial veto by Gov. Tony Evers caused lawmakers to sue, saying it wasn’t an appropriations bill therefore not subject to a partial veto. Evers argued that the law included an appropriation and further asserted that DPI has been urging lawmakers to release the funds, which will lapse back into the state’s $4 billion budget surplus if not used before June 30.
Before the Supreme Court heard the case, a Dane County judge had ruled Evers’ veto proper, but said there wasn’t a case for the release of the funds. Both parties appealed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to take the appeal directly
Assistant Attorney General Charlotte Gibson, the Department of Justice lawyer for DPI and Evers, argued that lawmakers don’t have the power to withhold the money and the court should order the release of the money to DPI.
The issues at hand, Gibson said, “reflect an interlocking strategy to control how the executive branch spends funds and to limit the governor’s partial veto power. It involves dissecting appropriations into multiple bills and crediting funds set aside for executive agency programs to [the Joint Finance Committee] to control their destination and use. Those efforts are illegal, and they misread the governor’s veto authority.”
Gibson said that the intention of the law, and the money being placed in the emergency fund, was to give money to specific agencies for specific purposes. A brief notes that “over the past few decades, the Legislature has increasingly used that appropriation not for emergencies, but rather to fund anticipated expenses through a legislative committee that purports to retain veto power over how the executive branch spends appropriated money.”
Gibson said that the purpose of the emergency fund statute was not to serve as “a holding pen for lots of money that the Legislature wanted to give [the committee] power over,” but lawmakers are using it “to say, actually, we can spend it on whatever purpose…”
“We think to correct the constitutional violation here, this agency can order those funds to be released,” Gibson said.
Justices questioned Gibson on why the funds would need to be released to DPI if there was never an appropriation.
“The reality is the money’s sitting in a fund right now, and it hasn’t done anything with it,” Justice Rebecca Dallet said. “For all, we know they are going to use it for an emergency and not give it to anybody for anything else … that just hasn’t happened yet.”
Gibson replied that DPI has asked for the money and lawmakers haven’t given it to the agency.
“But, I’m saying, [JFC] hasn’t appropriated it anywhere,” Dallet said. “Is DPI having an emergency where you think this is emergency money that you should get…?”
“No, we think it’s unconstitutional for DPI not to get the money.” Gibson said.
“Even if you were right, that the statutory structure here is constitutionally problematic, I still don’t see how you win and get the money, because that is not what the law says,” Justice Brian Hagedorn said. “There’s no provision of law that actually gives the money to DPI or appropriates the money to DPI.”
Gibson noted that the co-chairs of the committee Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born have said the money is earmarked for the purpose of the literacy programs.
“What we’re struggling with is that we understand that there are hints and clues, earmarks — so different from an appropriation — and the way I’m looking at it, it could probably be parked in that fund indefinitely and that’s where I’m struggling with what’s the legal nexus,” said Justice Janet Protasiewicz.
Ryan Walsh, the attorney representing the Legislature, argued Evers’ veto was inappropriate because the bill was not an appropriation bill, and that the remedy should be that the bill is law as passed by the Legislature, without Evers’ veto.
“You can’t have an appropriation bill that makes no appropriation. It just doesn’t make sense,” Walsh said. However, he also said that if he is wrong then it means the law was improperly enacted because lawmakers passed it by voice vote, not roll call as is required of appropriations bills.
Walsh said that under his argument the money would stay in JFC and go back to the treasury at the end of the biennium.
“It doesn’t go to DPI,” Walsh said. “There is no obligation for [JFC] to disperse this money.”
Justice Jill Karofsky said that she didn’t disagree about the discretion of the committee, but asked about the potential for lawmakers to abuse the discretion.
“There aren’t really any guardrails here,” Karofsky said.
Walsh said abuse “just doesn’t happen.”
“What would stop the Legislature from emptying every last dollar of the Wisconsin treasury into a [JFC] emergency account?” Karofsky asked further.
Walsh said many things could prevent that from happening, including the governor refusing to sign a budget that does so.
Walsh also said the emergency account is a small portion of the state budget. He said that in the last 10 years the percentage of the budget that has gone to the supplemental account has ranged from 0.06% in the 2017-19 budget to 0.33% in the 2021-23 budget.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley said she thought “part of why we are here [is] that some want us to take a look at this structure — allowing JFC to have this discretion — and that to not address it would be a rather lame opinion.”
Walsh said that he didn’t think the Court needed to reach the constitutional question.
“I don’t think anybody is insisting that you decide whether [Wisconsin should retain the] supplemental funding structure, which has been in place a long time, and by the way, the governor and the Legislature are assuming it’s still in place,” Walsh said. “We have a new budget pending… There are lots of reasons to be cautious here.”
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley speaks at an election night party for Justice-elect Susan Crawford. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley will retire from the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July with one more title on her curriculum vitae: chief justice.
Bradley, the Court’s most senior member, was elected by her colleagues Thursday to serve as the leader of the Court. She’ll succeed outgoing Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, whose second two-year term in the top position ends April 30.
Bradley’s term will run about two months starting May 1, and she’ll step down June 30 in anticipation of her retirement. In preparation for that, the justices also elected Justice Jill Karofsky to fill out the remainder of the two-year chief justice term, ending April 30, 2027.
Both Bradley and Karofsky, who was elected to the Court in 2020, are members of the Court’s liberal majority.
From the late 19th century to the mid-2010s, the state Supreme Court’s chief justice had been selected by seniority. In 2015, a constitutional amendment drafted by the Legislature’s Republican majority changed the selection process to a majority vote of the Court’s seven justices. The amendment also instituted a two-year term for the chief justice.
The amendment was aimed at unseating Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the Court’s first woman justice. Abrahamson had been chief justice since 1996, the second-longest to serve in the position. After voters ratified the amendment in April 2015, a majority of the justices — at the time, five conservatives — elected Justice Pat Roggensack chief. They reelected her in 2019, then elected Ziegler as her successor in 2021.
Bradley said in a statement that her election as chief justice is a “tremendous honor.”
“It has been my life’s goal to honor the rule of law, enhance access to justice, and serve the 5.9 million people who call Wisconsin home,” Bradley said. “Serving as Chief Justice enables me to further those goals.”
Bradley also participated in her final oral arguments Thursday morning, where Ziegler delivered kind words about her and called attention to her thorough resume and accomplishments
Prior to her time in law, Bradley served as a high school teacher before earning her law degree at UW-Madison Law School in 1976. Bradley worked in private practice, as a city attorney and as a public defender, including being appointed to the state public defender board in 1983.
In 1985, Bradley was appointed to serve as a circuit court judge in Marathon County.
Bradley won her first term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1995, and was reelected for two consecutive terms in 2005 and 2015. She decided to retire this year and will be succeeded by Justice-elect Susan Crawford, who defeated her challenger Brad Schimel Tuesday ensuring a 4-3 liberal majority on the Court until at least 2028.
Ziegler said Bradley has likely heard over 2,400 cases in oral arguments, give or take some cases, during her many years of service.
“I can assure you it’s quite impressive,” Ziegler said. “I don’t know how many opinions that you’ve written, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, but that number is also certainly impressive, and so, I would like to thank you Justice Ann Walsh Bradley for your service to the public and your service on this court.”
Bradley thanked Ziegler and said that it’s been an honor to serve. She also thanked her husband and family for their support throughout the years.
“People ask me, ‘Will you miss this place and miss this job?’ And, of course, I will,” Bradley said. “What makes this job is not only the heavy responsibility and an opportunity to serve, but an opportunity to serve with people who care deeply about the rule of law and care deeply about the people of this state.”
Karofsky said in a statement about her election to serve as chief justice that she appreciates the confidence of her colleagues and she will “continue to work respectfully with every member of this Court to ensure the administration of Court business is conducted in a fair and efficient manner.”
“The people of Wisconsin have great faith in this Court, and I intend to be a Chief that increases the people’s confidence even further,” Karofsky said. “I hope to be someone that every judge and staff person in the judicial system finds approachable, so we can continue to improve the service we provide in all 72 counties, keeping each of us safe and ensuring access to justice.”
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who said the power issues in Wisconsin mirrors current federal issues, at a press conference in December 2024. (Photo by: Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that could determine whether a law passed in 2018 that requires approval from legislators on civil settlements violates the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
The case — Josh Kaul v. Wisconsin State Legislature — is the latest in an ongoing legal struggle focused on the division of power between the Legislature and the executive branch.
A law passed after Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Kaul were elected in 2018, but before they took office, gave the Legislature, through the Joint Finance Committee, the ability to sign off on and decide how to spend court settlement money. That had been a power traditionally held by the attorney general.
It was part of a slate of laws passed and signed by Republicans during the lame duck period just weeks before the new Democratic administration took power in 2019. The Joint Finance Committee has become the vehicle for lawmakers to maintain control over actions that agencies take outside of the legislative process, and this is not the first lawsuit the state’s top court has heard on the issue.
The case made it to the state Supreme Court after Kaul appealed a 2024 decision by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District II that overturned a favorable decision made in 2022 by Dane County judge and now Justice-elect Susan Crawford.
Kaul said at a press conference after the arguments that the actions Wisconsin Republicans have taken to strip power from the executive branch are similar to those being taken by Republicans at the federal level.
“What we are seeing in these cases in Wisconsin in a lot of ways mirrors what’s going on with the federal government right now,” Kaul said. “At the federal level what we’re seeing is the executive branch trying to pull legislative power into its own hands and making decisions about how legislation should be applied or whether it should be applied. Here in Wisconsin what we saw instead was an effort to concentrate power in the Legislature.”
Kaul said that checks and balances and “multiple different sources of authority within the government” are necessary to protect the “our freedom and our liberty.”
“That’s why we have three co-equal branches of government,” Kaul said. “This case is about supporting that principle and ensuring that the separation of powers remains strong here in Wisconsin.”
During the arguments, Assistant Attorney General Hannah Jurss argued that the “executive branch has the power to execute the law” and the “Legislature’s constitutional power is to write the law.”
In a 2019 case, the state Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional. However, in a brief, Jurrs argues that the decision was not a broad endorsement of the law, but only “located a few instances where the statutes could be applied constitutionally and went no further.”
Jurrs argued the law is unconstitutional in part because there is no way for the executive to override a decision by the lawmakers, which has infringed on the executive branch’s work. The 2018 law has led to disputes between Kaul’s office and lawmakers over resolving cases involving state taxpayers.
“Having this sword, the legislative committee sword, hanging over our head infects our decision making at every stage and every action… whether to prosecute, how to prosecute. How to talk with our clients, when to pursue negotiation, and the terms,” Jurrs said. “We’ve presented 13 cases that [the committee] as a body never even convened to consider.”
Jurrs called the legislative seizure of executive powers an “unprecedented and unparalleled intrusion into execution of the law.” She also argued that it limits the ability for the attorney general to act in multi-state lawsuits.
Jurrs said that if the law had been in place in the 1990s when the state negotiated a tobacco resolution it would have led to a more complicated situation.
“Hey, 44 other states, we’re entering this gigantic resolution with the major tobacco companies. We know that everybody else has come to this agreement. It has to be really confidential, but excuse us, we’re gonna have to hold everything and we have to take this to a committee of our Legislature so that they can decide whether they want to rewrite this agreement or allow us to enter it or not,” Jurrs said.
Justice Rebecca Bradley expressed skepticism about Jurrs’ argument that the power should lie with the attorney general without the oversight of lawmakers.
“The Legislature in the provision that you’re attacking has prescribed the powers and duties of the attorney general, which is to basically give… the Legislature a check-and-balance on what the attorney general is doing and what I find frightening is that one person gets to make all of the policy decisions under your argument about what is going to be done with what is the taxpayers money,” Bradley said. “It’s not the attorney general’s money.”
Misha Tseytlin, the attorney representing the Legislature, argued that the statute serves as a check on the attorney general’s power and lawmakers have an interest in overseeing the money.
“It’s important to remember we’re talking about not the attorney general’s money, not the agency’s money, but the people’s money,” Tseytlin said. He said an example is the $420 million opioid settlement that was reached and approved by lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee in 2021. “The settlement was submitted to the Joint Finance committee, and it was approved by The Joint Finance committee. The Legislature in carrying out its constitutional duty to balance the budget of the state had to take into account all sorts of income, including that $420 million.”
Justice Rebecca Dallet questioned Tseytlin on how much power he was arguing lawmakers should have over funds.
“Any source of income that comes into the Legislature they’ve got control of, so could the Legislature appoint a committee to return tax returns to make sure they are getting the money that they’re supposed to?” Dallet asked. “My point in asking the question… is where does this end? Every single dollar that comes in means the Legislature has total control… There is no role for executive power here.”
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice-elect Susan Crawford, left, celebrates alongside Justice Rebecca Dallet after her win in the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
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.
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.
Voters wait in line and cast their ballots at the Villager Shopping Center during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
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.
Jill Underly, Wisconsin superintendent of public instruction, speaks to reporters following the State of Education Address on Sept. 26, 2024, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
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
A voter enters Centennial Hall at the Milwaukee Central Library to vote on Election Day, April 1, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)
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.
The results of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice-elect Susan Crawford’s victory over Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel are shown at the Crawford watch party on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel hugs supporters after making his concession speech Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Pewaukee, Wis. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)
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.
Elon Musk speaks at a town hall Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)
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.”
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford thanks supporters after winning the race Tuesday for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, solidifying liberal control of the body until 2028 and marking a sharp rebuke by the state’s voters of the policies of President Donald Trump and the financial might of his most prominent adviser, Elon Musk.
Crawford rode massive turnout in Dane and Milwaukee counties and outperformed Kamala Harris’ effort last year in a number of other parts of the state to defeat her opponent, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by about 10 points.
The former chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle who represented liberal groups such as Planned Parenthood and the Madison teacher’s union as a private practice attorney said during the campaign that she would look out for the rights of all Wisconsinites on the Supreme Court while repeatedly criticizing Schimel for his eagerness to show his support for Trump, his record as attorney general and the outside assistance his campaign got from Musk.
Crawford’s victory marks the third straight Supreme Court election for Wisconsin’s liberals and maintains the 4-3 liberal majority that has been in place since Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected in 2023. Crawford will replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
Since gaining control of the Court, the new liberal majority has ruled that the state’s previous legislative maps were unconstitutional, ending the partisan gerrymander that had locked in Republican control of the Legislature for more than a decade, and accepted cases that will decide the rights of Wisconsinites to have an abortion. The Court is also likely to consider a challenge to Wisconsin’s 2011 law stripping most union rights from public employees within the next year or two.
“I’m here tonight because I’ve spent my life fighting to do what’s right,” Crawford said after the race was called for her. “That’s why I got into this race, to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all.”
Schimel said he got into the race because he was opposed to the “partisanship” of the liberal controlled Court but his effort to nationalize the race and show his support for Trump proved unsuccessful against a backlash to the second Trump term and voters’ distrust of Musk, who offered cash incentives for people who got out the vote for Schimel.
Tuesday’s election was the first statewide race in the country since Trump won the presidency last fall. Trump narrowly won Wisconsin and in counties across the state, Schimel failed to match the president’s vote total. In La Crosse County, Crawford performed 11 points better than Harris did last year and Schimel didn’t even match Trump’s vote share in his home of Waukesha County.
Schimel ran nearly even with former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, who lost to Protasiewicz in the 2023 race. Wisconsin’s conservatives have now lost the past three Supreme Court elections by double digits.
The 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race set the record for the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history, topping the $100 million mark. While Crawford received support from liberal billionaires including George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Musk dwarfed all other contributors, dumping more than $20 million into the race.
Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel delivers his concession speech in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Musk’s money helped blanket the state’s airwaves with attack ads against Crawford’s record as a judge, often criticizing sentences she gave to people convicted of sexual violence. A Musk-associated PAC also hired people to knock on thousands of doors in an effort to turn out Trump’s base of Wisconsin voters, who have often sat out non-presidential elections. America PAC, a political action committee associated with Musk, paid door knockers $25 an hour, offered voters cash if they filled out a petition against “activist judges” and gave two people $1 million checks at a rally on Sunday.
“But I’ve got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin,” Crawford said. “And we won.”
In a concession speech delivered shortly before 9:30 p.m., Schimel told supporters they “didn’t leave anything on the field,” and when a few began to complain said “no, we’ve gotta accept this.”
“The numbers aren’t going to turn around. Too bad. We’re not going to pull this off,” he said. “So thank you guys. From the bottom of my heart. God bless you. God bless the state of Wisconsin. God bless America. You will rise again. We’ll get up to fight another day, it just wasn’t our day.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin, harnessing voters’ alarm at the actions Musk has been leading from his federal DOGE office to cut government programs and fire thousands of public employees, held People v. Musk town halls across the state where residents said they were worried about the effect those cuts would have on services they rely on like Medicaid, Social Security, veteran’s benefits and education funding.
Gov. Tony Evers said that Wisconsin “felt the weight of America” in this election, which proved Wisconsinites “will not be bought.”
“This election was about the resilience of the Wisconsin and American values that define and unite us,” Evers said. “This election was about doing what’s best for our kids, protecting constitutional checks and balances, reaffirming our faith in the courts and the judiciary, and defending against attacks on the basic rights, freedoms, and institutions we hold dear. But above all, this election was as much about who Wisconsinites believe we can be as it was about the country we believe we must be.”
Democrats and Crawford accused Musk of trying to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court, partially to influence a lawsuit his company, Tesla, has filed challenging a Wisconsin law that prohibits car manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. Musk said he was focused on the race because the Court could decide the constitutionality of the state’s congressional maps, which currently favor Republicans and help the party hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the victory party, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler compared the effort against Musk and Trump to Gov. Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette’s fight against the oligarchs of the early 20th century, adding that Republicans’ association with Musk will be an “anchor.”
“I think what Susan Crawford did by making clear that Elon Musk was the real opponent in this race, what voters did by responding to Elon Musk, it made clear that Elon Musk is politically toxic, and he is a massive anchor that will drag Republicans from the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “And that’s a message that I hope Republicans in Washington hear as fast as possible. Not only will they lose, but they will deserve to lose resoundingly and they will be swept out of power in a wave of outrage across the nation.”
On the campaign trail, Crawford sought to tie Schimel to Musk — she called her opponent “Elon Schimel” at the only debate between the two candidates — while portraying herself as the less partisan candidate. Throughout the nominally non-partisan race, both candidates lobbed accusations of extreme political views at the other.
With Crawford’s victory and the retention of the Court’s liberal majority, the body is expected to rule on cases that ask if Wisconsin’s Constitution grants women the right to access an abortion, the legality of the Republican-authored law that restricts the collective bargaining rights of most public employees, how Wisconsin’s industries should be regulated for pollution and the legality of the state’s congressional maps.
Heather Williams, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement that Democrats were offering a better vision for the country than the one promised by Schimel, Trump and Musk.
“Despite Republicans’ best efforts to buy this seat, Wisconsin voters showed up for their values and future,” Williams said. “While Trump dismantles programs that taxpayers have earned, support, and are counting on, voters across the country are turning to state Democrats who are delivering on promises to lower costs and expand opportunities.”
This story was updated Wednesday morning with current vote totals.
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