The national left is all in on Wisconsin’s crucial Supreme Court race, a contest that will not only determine whether conservatives or liberals control the high court, but the fate of Gov. Tony Evers’ liberal agenda and, possibly, the 2024 presidential election.
Conservative Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly, a former justice on the court, says the race is about the very survival of the constitution and the rule of law.
“Everyone on the left keeps trying to push this campaign and the question about the function of the court into the political realm. It’s almost like they don’t understand the separation of powers, the difference between the court and the Legislature, Kelly told The Star News Network’s M.D. Kittle Thursday on the Vicki McKenna Show.
This week, a New York Times political piece declared Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election in early April (the primary is late next month), “will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023.”
“The April race, for a seat on the state’s evenly divided Supreme Court, will determine the fate of abortion rights, gerrymandered legislative maps and the Wisconsin governor’s appointment powers — and perhaps even influence the state’s 2024 presidential election,” the Times reported. Wisconsin, as a battleground state, could once again play a big role in deciding the next president.
You need only look at the money that’s pouring in, and will pour in, particularly on the left. Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, one of two liberals running in the four-person race, raised a breathtaking $924,000 last year. That’s more than all three other candidates combined and more than any Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate ever in the year before an election.
It’s no surprise that money is coming from contributors on the left side of politics. Mega Dem funder Karla Jurvetson has given the maximum $20,000 donation. Jurvetson is a physician, philanthropist, and large-sum donor to Democratic candidates and PACs. “She is a long-time Democratic activist and donor who rose to prominence during the 2018 election cycle when she gave $6.9 million to Democratic political causes, making her the third-highest female donor in politics, and 18th-highest donor overall,” according to Influence Watch.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg.
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, told the New York Times he predicts spending on the race would eclipse the most expensive U.S. judicial race on record, a $15 million campaign in 2004 for the Illinois Supreme Court, according to the liberal Brennan Center for Justice.
Protasiewicz hasn’t been shy about her progressive beliefs. She recently told WKOW’s Capital City Sunday that when it comes to legal questions like abortion, legislative maps and cultural issues, she embraces the “progressive label.”
At a candidate forum this month, she said the state’s legislative maps are “rigged.” She has pushed her pro-abortion beliefs in the campaign, arguing that abortion should be “a woman’s right to choose.” And Protasiewicz, who signed the petition to recall former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, has said Walker’s Act 10 law curbing public employee collective bargaining power was unconstitutional. She said if she wins, the Supreme Court will most likely take up the state’s redistricting case, decided by the current conservative-led court.
Very likely true, but Protasiewicz is unabashedly opining on cases that would come before her as a justice, even as she insists she won’t put her thumb on the scales of justice.
“They (the left) are looking at the court as a place to make policy,” said Kelly, who is also running against liberal Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell, and conservative Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow, who presided over the nationally followed Waukesha Christmas Parade Massacre trial.
“What they (the left) are looking at is completely overturning the constitutional order, maybe because they believe this one issue is more important than the constitution,” Kelly said.
The former Supreme Court justice said it all boils down to an important point:
“If a Supreme Court justice is willing to ignore the constitution and the law on an issue, she’d be willing to ignore it for other issues that she personally cares about,” Kelly said. “This is about the subversion of the rule of law in Wisconsin, and this cannot stand.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Justice Daniel Kelly” by Justice Daniel Kelly.
