Help WisDems win “the most important election nobody’s ever heard of” (Politico): Wisconsin’s April 4 state Supreme Court race. Read the top 5 reasons why it’s “colossal” (NYTimes) and chip in so we can #flipthecourt!
Before the Top Five Reasons countdown, here are the basics about this race.
Wisconsin's state Supreme Court is officially nonpartisan. In reality, there are currently four hard-core partisan Republicans, who use their 4-3 majority to drive the GOP agenda. But one is retiring.
The open seat means that whoever wins on April 4 will be the deciding vote—and if a progressive wins, the court will flip to a 4-3 progressive majority. Which could change, well, everything about Wisconsin politics.
These are statewide races to serve ten-year terms. The terms are staggered; after this race, the next Supreme Court of Wisconsin (SCOWIS) race is in 2025. So whatever happens in this race will determine the court during 2024’s presidential cycle.
That’s why the New York Times headline said that Wisconsin's Supreme Court race is “2023’s Biggest, Most Unusual Race.”
Important dates of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race:
- February 21, 2023: nonpartisan primary election—the top 2 vote-getters will advance to the general election
- April 4, 2023: general election
In the primary, there are two candidates who would represent a vast improvement: Everett Mitchell and Janet Protasiewicz. WisDems is neutral between them. And there are two hyper-conservative candidates we must defeat: Dan Kelly and Jennifer Dorow. More on those two:
GOP operative Dan Kelly was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2016 and quickly established his bona fides as a full-bore Republican hack. You might’ve heard of him from April 2020, when he was endorsed by Trump, and lost.
When right-wing activist Dan Kelly was defeated in 2020, he became only the second sitting SCOWIS justice to lose a reelection campaign in state history. Now he’s endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin, which opposes not just abortion, but contraception. We’re ready to defeat him again.
The other right-wing candidate is Jennifer Dorow, who has been evading questions on the campaign trail about her views—but is as far-right as Dan Kelly. That’s why Wisconsin Right to Life endorsed her.
Jennifer Dorow’s backers include anti-abortion politician Eric Toney, who infamously proposed empowering district attorneys to cross county lines and enforce Wisconsin’s 1849 criminal abortion ban in places where they weren’t elected.
Dorow is also backed by the extreme-right Supreme Court Justice who is stepping down—and who supported Trump’s post-2020 lawsuit to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots and hand Wisconsin to Trump after Biden won. (That lawsuit fell just one vote short, 3-4.)
Like Dan Kelly, Dorow was appointed to the bench by Scott Walker. When applying to Walker for appointment as a circuit court judge, she boasted of her “strong conservative values.” Asked to name the worst Supreme Court decision, she named Lawrence v. Texas.
Either right-wing candidate in this race—Jennifer Dorow or Dan Kelly—would be a disaster for Wisconsin.
Until the primary, WisDems will be neutral between the progressive candidates—but will get out the vote statewide to ensure that Democrats vote against the far-right. Then, on February 22, we’ll immediately go to bat for the progressive who advances.
So, why does this race matter so much? Even to people who don’t live in Wisconsin? Let’s count down.
REASON FIVE: WISCONSIN’S EXTREME ABORTION BAN
Wisconsin has an archaic 1849 abortion ban—one of the harshest in the country. Last year, our great Attorney General Josh Kaul and Governor Evers filed a lawsuit to overturn that ban when the ultra-MAGA majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe.
This case could wind up in front of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court after the new Justice is seated in August.
A state Supreme Court that looks at the law, not just the agendas of anti-abortion special interest groups, could overturn the abortion ban.
If you believe that all of us deserve to have the freedom to control our own bodies—and not ask for a politician’s permission to get health care—then chip in to help end the near-total abortion ban in Wisconsin.
REASON FOUR: THE CERTIFICATION OF THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election on April 4 will have the largest effect on the 2024 presidential race than any other election in the country in 2023.
Let’s go back to the 2020 presidential election. After it was clear that he’d lost, Trump did everything in his power to overturn the will of the voters—and one key element of his strategy was appealing to Wisconisn’s Supreme Court.
In a desperate case before SCOWIS in December 2020, Trump sought to disqualify more than 221,000 votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties (the two biggest sources of Dem votes in Wisconsin). This would’ve handed Trump Wisconsin’s 10 key electoral votes.
However, in a narrow 4-3 ruling, SCOWIS ruled against Trump.
About an hour later, the Electoral College cast Wisconsin’s 10 votes for President Joe Biden.
I remember it vividly. I was an elector. The moment we heard about the 4-3 ruling, we exhaled.
In 2016, Wisconsin was the state that tipped the electoral college to Trump. In 2020, Wisconsin tipped the electoral college to Joe Biden and ensured he would be our 46th President. We’re the most likely tipping point state again in 2024.
It’s hard not to conclude that Dorow or Kelly could have supported Trump in attempting to overturn the 2020 election result. If it happens again, we can’t count on them to uphold democracy. This is the danger zone.
We have to #flipthecourt to take that threat—of Trump and MAGA Republicans attempting to overturn the election yet again—off the table for 2024. Chip in to join us.
REASON THREE: VOTING RIGHTS
When it comes to ease of voting, Wisconsin is ranked 47th—sandwiched between Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi near the bottom of the list. And the Wisconsin Supreme Court keeps making our voting rules even worse.
In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled (4-3, as always) to eliminate drop boxes. In the same ruling, they prohibited loved ones and caregivers from returning an absentee ballot on a voter’s behalf. This was hard for many voters—and devastating to voters with disabilities that make it challenging or impossible to get to a mailbox or polling place.
(It took a federal lawsuit by four disabled voters, represented by Law Forward to secure disabled voters’ right under the Voting Rights Act to have assistance returning their ballots.)
Bob Spindell—a member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and fraudulent elector from 2020—bragged about suppressing Black and Latino Milwaukeeans in 2022. He listed “extremely significant continued Court Litigation” as one of the factors in lower turnout.
Our freedoms as voters are on the line. We’ve got to win the Supreme Court race on April 4 to make sure we don’t have voter suppression activists on our state’s highest court. Chip in now to help us win and safeguard our democracy.
REASON TWO: THE COURT UNDERMINING WISCONSIN’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR
The hyperpartisan SCOWIS ruled 4-3 to uphold laws passed in a lame-duck session (held after Evers won, but while Walker was still in office) in which the GOP legislature stripped powers from the incoming Democratic governor.
The GOP’s lame-duck power grab sapped the power of the Governor, elected statewide, and handed it to a gerrymandered GOP majority in the Legislature. Among the powers the Legislature awarded itself: the use of unlimited taxpayer funds to hire private attorneys to do… whatever.
So, GOP Speaker Robin Vos hired election-denier Michael Gableman to run a $1.4-million sham “investigation” into the 2020 election, paid for by taxpayers. He found no evidence of voter fraud—but was a walking ad for extreme, ultra-MAGA Republicans.
Most Wisconsinites think this was a disgrace. But at a candidate forum, Jennifer Dorow and Dan Kelly voiced their support for Gableman-style sham investigations and election lawsuits.
None of this would have happened if the Supreme Court had followed Wisconsin law and rejected the lame-duck power grab.
If you don’t think that Republican-aligned judges should allow illegal power grabs by far-right gerrymandered legislatures that lead to sham investigations that poison public faith in our democracy, chip in now to flip Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.
REASON ONE: GERRYMANDERED MAPS
Wisconsin voted for Dems in 14 of the last 17 statewide elections, but is close to GOP supermajorities in both legislative chambers. We have eight Congressional districts—and six of our House reps are Republicans.
Why?
Partisan gerrymandering.
Wisconsin has one of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country. Which is saying a lot. Under the current GOP-drawn district lines, for Democrats to win a majority in the state legislature, they’d need to win the statewide vote by twelve points.
One study aptly called Wisconsin a “democracy desert,” comparing it to the Congo and Syria.
The GOP obscenely gerrymandered Wisconsin in 2011 after Scott Walker and the GOP took control in 2010. When the maps were challenged in court, Dan Kelly was the lawyer tapped to defend them. He won, and Walker went on to appoint him to fill a vacancy on SCOWIS.
It’s hard to convey just what it’s like in a state without a functioning democracy due to extreme gerrymandering, in which the Supreme Court sides with those doing the gerrymandering. This tweet was an attempt to convey it:
Governor Evers ran on a commitment to fair maps. In 2020, the GOP legislature passed gerrymandered maps, and Evers vetoed them. But then the fight went to the courts—and the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to choose the GOP legislature’s proposal.
Voters should choose their elected leaders, not the other way around. If we defeat right-wing judges Dorow and Kelly, we can protect the possibility of free and fair elections in our state.
Competitive districts for the House and legislature—and maps in which a majority of votes could yield a majority of seats—would transform Wisconsin politics, and affect American politics more broadly.
The extraordinary movement that has been fighting for fair maps for the last decade has made enormous progress in redefining this issue and raising it to public awareness.
Now it’s time to dismantle the court majority standing in the way of democracy.
If you believe that voters deserve to have an equal say in who represents them, chip into our month-end fundraiser so we can #flipthecourt and have a shot at fair maps in Wisconsin.
It’s time for us to mobilize to win the majority on our state Supreme Court on April 4.
Our plan: organize, protect the vote, and communicate.
We’ve already started hiring organizers, recruiting volunteers, and preparing for huge organizing weekends for this election. In fact, while you’re reading this, sign up for our “60 Days to Victory” volunteer day on February 4.
We’re proud to run our incredible, year-round voter protection program to educate voters on how to cast their ballots and protect their vote at the polls. We had a massive turnout at our Spring 2023 Voter Protection Kickoff. Volunteers are fired up!
Our volunteers are ready to staff our Voter Assistance Hotline (608-336-3232) and monitor polling places. We won’t stand for Wisconsin Republicans giddily gloating about suppressing Black and Latino voters. Pitch in to support our efforts, like our voter protection program.
Lastly, we won’t stop talking about this election. We’ve been calling it “the most important election nobody’s ever heard of”—but that will change. We’ll communicate through every channel we have so that every Wisconsin Democrat will have heard about it.
It’s beyond clear that the foes of democracy will not give an inch. They will go to extreme lengths to lock in their own power and avoid any public accountability.
But they’ve underestimated our resolve and commitment to fight for our democracy.
Today, for our end-of-month deadline, we’ve set a fundraising goal of $11,000 to scale up our operation before the primary. Chip in any amount to help us meet it by midnight. And if you can’t pitch in, please help us spread the word today by sharing this story. It makes all the difference.
Let’s use every hour between now and April 4 to fight for a democracy where everyone’s voice is heard. Let’s do this.
