Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have spent the last several years engineering a hostile takeover of the federal judiciary, granting lifetime tenure to dozens of 40-something far-right ideologues who will gleefully greenlight every facet of the conservative agenda, from eviscerating abortion rights to suppressing the vote.
But there’s one critical venue where we can fight back: state supreme courts. Republicans would like to bend these powerful bodies to their will, too, but we can stop them. That’s why Daily Kos is proud to endorse Judge Jill Karofsky in the April 7 election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The stakes in this race are huge. Karofsky is challenging incumbent Justice Dan Kelly, who was hand-picked in 2016 by none other than Scott Walker. He’s been endorsed by Trump, anti-abortion groups, and the NRA. He also served as an adviser to the conservative legal group that’s currently waging a fight to force the state to purge over 200,000 voters from the rolls.
Please give $3 now to oust Trump’s pet judge in swing-state Wisconsin!
In short, he’s a Republican dreamboat. With his help, the high court will do whatever it can to undermine environmental regulations, give its approval to extreme GOP gerrymanders, attack the rights of LGBTQ people, roll back reproductive freedoms, weaken protections for workers … the conservative wishlist is too long to list in its entirety, but you can be certain Kelly will gladly smooth its path.
Karofsky, however, couldn’t be more different. She’s a fair-minded, independent jurist who, prior to being elected a trial court judge in Dane County in 2017, spent years as an advocate for victims. While serving in the state attorney general’s office, she was the first person specifically tasked with ensuring that prosecutors around the state had the resources and training necessary to bring cases against perpetrators of violence against women.
She has the support of top Wisconsin Democrats such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin and former Sen. Russ Feingold; a wide array of unions, including AFSCME and the SEIU; and progressive organizations like Planned Parenthood. She’s also an ultra-marathoner and has completed multiple Ironman competitions, so you know she has the strength and energy to win.
But she also needs cash, because Republican dark-money groups are going to spend whatever it takes to preserve the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. To best help Karofsky, we’re raising money for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which has called all hands on deck for this race. The party has promised us that 100% of the funds the Daily Kos community gives between now and the election will be used to fund their Supreme Court election efforts.
Wisconsin, of course, is going to be one of the most important swing states this fall, so you know that Trump wants his pet judge on the bench to help him out in the event of a close race. But there’s even more at stake: Right now, conservatives hold a 5-2 majority on the court; if Karofsky wins, we’ll whittle that down to 4-3.
A narrower advantage will, in the short term, make it harder for the conservatives to hold the line, but even more important, we’ll be able to flip the court to a liberal majority in just a few short years. If we can do that, then Wisconsin will finally have a Supreme Court ready to curb the worst excesses of the Republican Party.
For that to happen, though, we need to win next month. This race is likely to be decided by a very small margin—again, we’re talking about swingy Wisconsin—so every dollar really counts.
Please give $3 now to help Jill Karofsky defeat Scott Walker’s hand-picked judge on the Wisconsin Supreme Court!