It is impossible to overstate the importance of next month’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and how crucial it is for Judge Janet Protasiewicz to secure that seat. The scope of issues the next court is going to be considering couldn’t have higher stakes: abortion rights; voting rights; redistricting; and the 2024 presidential electoral count.
Wisconsin Republicans aren’t letting up on any of it. On Wednesday, GOP legislators introduced an abortion ban intended to replace the 1849 law which is currently pending before the state Supreme Court. Rather than the blanket ban imposed by the old law, this legislation would allow abortion in cases of rape and incest or when the mother is experiencing serious pregnancy complications. GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he wants to keep the legislature in charge of the abortion issue, instead of allowing the state’s highest court to be a “super Legislature.”
“The first hope is that (conservative Supreme Court candidate) Dan Kelly wins the election so that we have a Legislature that actually is a place where political decisions are made, not the state Supreme Court,” Vos said. “I’m an optimist. I think that eventually people will realize that the right way to do it is through the traditional process, not through a super Legislature, the state Supreme Court, but hopefully the voters agree.” The legislation would be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who brought the lawsuit to overturn the original 1849 law. It’s blocked from enforcement at the moment due to Evers’ lawsuit.
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But beyond the abortion issue, Vos’ statement about curtailing the Supreme Court’s power is a big red flag when it comes to elections issues. That’s a pretty clear endorsement of the “independent state legislature” theory the MAGA crew has taken to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to throw the next election to Trump (or DeSantis or whichever Republican loses the popular vote). If Protasiewicz wins, and if the electoral votes in Wisconsin don’t go the GOP’s way, he is going to try to undermine the court. If Kelly wins, he won’t have to—the Republican-controlled court will throw the election for the GOP.
The current conservative majority on that court is trying to help. It just voted to reappoint a Trump coup plotter to its Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee. The appointee, Jim Troupis, was a Trump campaign attorney who helped to craft the fake elector scheme to overturn the will of Wisconsin voters—as well as voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania—and throw the election to the loser.
Count conservative candidate Kelly among those Trump advisers, by the way. He parlayed his previous service on the state Supreme Court into being handsomely paid by state and national Republicans to advise on election issues—issues like finding “legal” ways to support Trump’s attempted coup.
In contrast, this: “Protasiewicz, who received $2.5 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party, has pledged that if she wins, she won’t hear cases brought by the party because people might perceive that as unfair, given the sum.”
We remain in fraught times here, and Wisconsin is ground zero in 2023. What happens there next month is going to be huge, either for good or ill. Let’s make it good.
Can you donate $10—or maybe $20, even—to Judge Protaseiwicz’s campaign to win back the Wisconsin Supreme Court?