With just one week before Wisconsin’s spring election, it’s all hands on deck in the bruising battle for control of the Badger State’s high court.
Conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly and liberal Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz are making their closing arguments before Tuesday’s pivotal election — the brunt of the statements being made through expensive and negative ads blanketing Wisconsin’s TV markets.
The outcome of this politically driven “non-partisan” election will determine whether conservatives or liberals control the court.
So it may come as little surprise that the contest is by far the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. A WisPolitics.com review of campaign funds has found well north of $30 million has been spent by the campaigns and outside groups. Protasiewicz’s campaign on Monday said it had raised $12.3 million between Feb. 7 and March 20.
Protasiewicz’s will undoubtedly spend the final week pumping her progressive bonafides, particularly her less-than-veiled opposition to Wisconsin’s abortion ban, and pounding her opponent on his pro-life supporters.
Kelly is taking aim at the liberal’s “soft-on-crime” record on the bench and highlighting his support from law enforcement and judges. His campaign and his supporters have highlighted several cases in which “#NoJailJanet” has handed down light sentences for serious offenses.
A new ad hitting Protasiewicz is reminiscent of the “Willie Horton ad” a la the 1988 presidential campaign. The spot notes Quantrell Bounds was arrested and charged with raping a 13-year-old girl, recording it and posting video of the attack to Facebook.
“Judge Janet refused to give Bounds any prison time at all,” the narrator says. “No prison for child rapists. That’s Janet Protasiewicz on crime.”
At the only debate of the race last week, Protasiewicz accused the Kelly campaign of “cherrypicking” her record.
But Fox News on Monday reported on another case in which the Milwaukee County Judge suspended the prison sentence of a domestic abuser with a long criminal history before he went on to kill two people and burned their bodies in 2019.
Protasiewicz has defended her record, saying that “hindsight is 20/20.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Janet Protasiewicz” by Janet for Justice. Photo “Daniel Kelly” by Justice Daniel Kelly. Background Photo “Wisconsin Supreme Court” by Daderot. CC0 1.0.
