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Wisconsin Supreme Court
Highest court in the U.S. state of Wisconsin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the highest and final court of appeals in the state judicial system of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. In addition to hearing appeals of lower Wisconsin court decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court also has the option to take original jurisdiction of cases, and serves as a regulator and administrator of judicial conduct and the practice of law in Wisconsin.[2]
Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are elected. The two most recent elections (2023 and 2025) received national attention. They both broke records for the most expensive judicial elections in U.S. history.[3][4]
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Location
The Wisconsin Supreme Court normally sits in its main hearing room in the East Wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. Since 1993, the court has also traveled, once or twice a year, to another part of the state to hear several cases as part of its "Justice on Wheels" program. The purpose of this program is to give the people of Wisconsin a better opportunity to understand the operations of the state supreme court and the court system.[5]
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Justices
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The court is composed of seven justices who are elected in statewide, non-partisan elections. Each justice is elected for a ten-year term. Importantly, only one justice may be elected in any year. This avoids the sudden shifts in jurisprudence commonly seen in other state supreme courts, where the court composition can be radically shifted if two or three justices are simultaneously targeted for an electoral challenge based on their views on controversial issues. In the event of a vacancy on the court, the governor has the power to appoint an individual to the vacancy, but that justice must then stand for election in the first year in which no other justice's term expires.
After passage of a state constitutional amendment on April 7, 2015, the chief justice of the court is elected for a term of 2 years by the vote of a majority of the justices then serving on the court, although the justice so elected may decline the appointment. Prior to that amendment, the justice with the longest continuous service on the court served as the chief justice.
While the court is officially nonpartisan, its members are generally regarded as having consistent ideological positions. Justices Crawford, Dallet, Karofsky, and Protasiewicz are frequently described as liberals, while Justices Ziegler, Hagedorn, and Bradley are described as conservatives. Liberal justices and candidates are endorsed and electorally supported by the Democratic Party and related organizations, and conservatives have an equivalent relationship with the Republican Party. Justice Hagedorn was considered the court's "swing justice" prior to Justice Protasiewicz's investiture; while his campaign was supported by Republican organizations and he previously served as chief legal counsel to Republican governor Scott Walker, he has sided with the so-called liberal justices in several noteworthy cases.[6]
Current justices
- Originally appointed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) after the death of Justice N. Patrick Crooks.[7] Elected to a full term on April 1, 2016.
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Chief justice selection
The members of the court choose their chief justice every two years by majority vote. This method of choosing the chief justice is a recent change, from a 2015 constitutional amendment. The change was controversial at the time, even leading to a federal lawsuit by the outgoing chief justice, Shirley Abrahamson, after the loss of her role to Patience Roggensack.[8][9]
Prior to 2015, the chief justice was simply the longest continually-serving member of the court. This was the method for most of the court's history, since 1889. Prior to 1889, the court's chief justice was a separate seat on the court, elected by the public.[10]
Controversies
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Recusal
In 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., holding 5–4 that a campaign expenditure of over $3 million by a corporate litigant to influence the election of a judge in West Virginia to the court that would hear its case, although legal, was an "extreme fact" that created a "probability of bias", thus requiring the judge to be recused from hearing the case.[11] Wisconsin had adopted a limit of $1,000 for campaign contributions to judges, but it was unclear when mandatory recusal was required.[12] The League of Women Voters petitioned the Court to require a judge to recuse himself or herself from a proceeding if the judge had received any campaign contributions from a party or entity involved in it.[12] Instead, during its 2009–2010 term and by a 4–3 vote, the Court adopted a rule that recusal is not required based solely on any endorsement or receipt of a lawful campaign contribution from a party or entity involved in the proceeding, and that a judge does not need to seek recusal where it would be based solely on a party in the case sponsoring an independent expenditure or issue advocacy communication in favor of the judge. Voting in favor of the new rule were Prosser, Gableman, Roggensack, and Ziegler. Voting against were Abrahamson, Crooks, and A. Bradley. In the opinion of Justice Roggensack, "when a judge is disqualified from participation, the votes of all who voted to elect that judge are cancelled for all issues presented by that case. Accordingly, recusal rules . . . must be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest." In dissenting, Justice A. Bradley called the decision "a dramatic change to our judicial code of ethics" and took issue with the majority's decision to adopt a rule "proposed by special interest groups."[12]
The issue of recusal became a major controversy again after the 2023 judicial election, but with the ideological positions reversed. Conservatives justice Rebecca Bradley and chief justice Annette Ziegler abandoned their previous position, which favored narrow recusal rules, and instead urged a broad recusal standard after Wisconsin elected a liberal majority to the Court in 2023.[13] Their demand was targeted at the newest justice, Janet Protasiewicz, and was paired with a threat from the Republican Assembly speaker to begin an impeachment. At issue was the allegation that Protasiewicz had pre-judged pending redistricting cases, because she had remarked during the campaign that Wisconsin's legislative maps were "rigged". Several complaints were also filed against Protasiewicz with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, but the commission quickly dismissed those complaints.[14]
Confrontation
On June 13, 2011, a confrontation between Justices David Prosser, Jr. and Ann Walsh Bradley occurred in Bradley's chambers. Prosser, Bradley, and the other justices (except N. Patrick Crooks) were discussing the following day's decision that would overturn a ruling blocking the Wisconsin collective bargaining law. Witnesses stated that the incident happened after Prosser had stated that he'd lost all confidence in the leadership of Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.[15] Bradley later accused Prosser of putting her in a chokehold.[15] Prosser denied the allegations and asked for "a proper review of the matter and the facts surrounding it".[15] The incident was investigated by the Dane County Sheriff's Office. Witnesses to the incident disagreed about what had happened[15] and neither Prosser nor Bradley was charged by a special prosecutor.[16] Ethics charges brought against Prosser based on Bradley's allegations were never adjudicated due to the lack of a quorum on the Court after recusals.[17]
2020 primary election amid COVID-19 pandemic
In April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled (virtually, due to the pandemic) that Governor Tony Evers could not delay the state's 2020 primary elections, despite public fears of COVID-19.[18]
Stay at home order
In May 2020, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Republican-led state legislature, the Court ruled 4–3 to strike down an order issued by Secretary-designate of the Department of Health Services Andrea Palm, which extended the stay-at-home order previously issued by Governor Tony Evers.[19] The portion of the order that kept all K-12 schools closed for the remainder of the school year remained in effect.[20] The deciding vote to strike down the Secretary-designate's order was by Daniel Kelly, who had recently lost his bid for re-election to Jill Karofsky.[21]
Redistricting
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has played an increasingly important role in the redistricting process in Wisconsin. The Court was first involved in redistricting in the 1890s, when they struck down two versions of state legislative maps and set standards for equal representation and district boundaries which the Legislature largely adhered to until the guidance was superseded by federal guidance in the 20th century.[22] The Court next played an important role in the 1950s redistricting, when the Legislature passed two redistricting plans in consecutive sessions (1951 & 1953). At that time, the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the Legislature to enact two redistricting plans for the same census.[23] The following decade, the Court took the extraordinary step of drawing the map themselves, in 1964, after the Governor and Legislature had failed to come to an agreement.[24]
After the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and related United States Supreme Court cases, the Wisconsin Supreme Court backed off from redistricting issues and deferred to federal courts. That changed after the United States Supreme Court case of Gill v. Whitford, in 2018, which significantly reduced federal jurisdiction of gerrymandering cases. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court took on redistricting again. But the state court lacked many of the laws, procedures, and precedents of the federal courts which had settled redistricting cases for the previous four decades. In their absence, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struggled with the case, which was further exacerbated by a significant partisan split between the court's three conservatives and three liberals.[25]
Going into the 2022 case, Wisconsin's legislative map had among the worst partisan biases in the country.[26][27] At the outset of the case, the court's three conservatives, along with the swing vote Hagedorn, established a novel legal concept that all parties should pursue the "least changes" to the existing map necessary to bring it into compliance with the applicable laws.[28] The Republican legislature and the Democratic governor each submitted map proposals. The court quickly found that Evers' proposal actually best adhered to the court's "least changes" guidance, nevertheless, the three conservatives who had established that guidance voted against his plan. The plan was adopted by the court's three liberals, A. Bradley, Dallet, and Karofsky, with the swing vote of Hagedorn.[29]
Wisconsin's Republican legislature, however, appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which threw out the Wisconsin decision in a shadow docket opinion.[30] The U.S. Supreme Court stated that the ad hoc process adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court had failed to give proper consideration to questions of racial gerrymandering under the federal Voting Rights Act. Without further deliberation, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's action, Hagedorn switched his vote to the Republican plan, although it suffered from an identical process defect. The Republican legislative map was then utilized for the 2022 elections.[31]
On December 22, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, holding that Wisconsin's state legislative districts violated the Constitution of Wisconsin.[32] Justice Jill Karofsky, writing for an ideologically split 4–3 majority enjoined the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using the maps for the 2024 Wisconsin elections.[33]
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Elections
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Election laws
Justices are elected in nonpartisan elections for ten-year terms. Only one justice may be elected in any year. Justices are elected in the spring election, on the first Tuesday in April. If there are more than two candidates, a spring primary is held on the third Tuesday in February.
The Wisconsin Constitution, as initially ratified in 1848, prohibited judicial elections from coinciding with general elections for state or county officers (such as gubernatorial elections), or within thirty days of any such election.[34] The current wording of this clause in the constitution prohibits judicial elections from coinciding with any partisan general elections for such offices.[35] In 1858, a state law was enacted scheduling judicial elections to be held the first Tuesday of April.[34] A 1949 law change mandated that winners of judicial elections must secure a majority of the vote. Prior to this, justice candidates could win election with a mere plurality of the vote. This law change was implemented in time for the 1949 Supreme Court election.[34] In April 1953, Wisconsin voters approved a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment so that all elections to the supreme court (even early elections held following vacancies) are for full ten-year terms. This means that rather than holding special elections for the remainder of an uncompleted term (as had been done previously), vacancies instead now can result in the date of the next regular election being advanced to an earlier year (also impacting the tentative scheduling of future elections beyond that).[34][36] In April 1977 voters adopted a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment unifying the state's court system, which included the stipulation that no more than one seat on the state supreme court may be up for election within the same year.[37] Consequentially, vacancies can only result in the year of the next election being shifted if there is a more immediate year without a scheduled contest.
An exception to the holding of supreme court elections on the first Tuesday in April took place in 1996. That year, the election was shifted to March 19 after Governor Tommy Thompson signed a bill into law that rescheduled both the 1996 spring general election and the state's presidential primaries in order to have the presidential primaries coincide with the Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio primaries already scheduled for March 19. This was done in hopes that Wisconsin could join those fellow Midwest states in forming a prominent "Big Ten primary" scheduled close after Super Tuesday in the major party primary calendars.[38][39] This was not subsequently repeated.
Campaign spending
Although these elections are supposed to be nonpartisan, parties and individual donors have begun providing significant contributions to their preferred candidates, especially recently. Elections have become increasingly expensive. Spending has grown from $4.3 million in 2016 [40] to $45 million in 2023[41] and nearly $100 million in 2025.[42]
2020
On April 7, 2020, incumbent conservative justice Daniel Kelly lost re-election to liberal Dane County circuit judge Jill Karofsky. The election was held during the coronavirus pandemic, forcing many voters to choose between voting by mail, waiting in long lines for hours, or not participating at all.[43] Kelly was the first incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court justice to lose re-election since 2008, and only the second since 1967.[44]
2023
Conservative Justice Patience Roggensack did not seek re-election in 2023. Liberal Milwaukee County circuit judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative former Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly at the April 4, 2023, general election.[45] Circuit judges Jennifer Dorow and Everett Mitchell also ran, but they were eliminated in the February 21 primary.[46][47] The race attracted widespread media attention, as it would determine the ideological balance of the court for at least the next two years. Protasiewicz's victory could determine how the court rules on future cases involving abortion, voting rights, and labor rights,[48] while redistricting was decided on in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
2025
Liberal justice Ann Walsh Bradley did not seek reelection in 2025.[49] Circuit judges Susan M. Crawford and Brad Schimel competed in the April 1 general election, in a race that which again would determine the ideological balance of the court.[50] Crawford won with 55 percent to Schimel's 45 percent of the vote.[51]
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Notes
See also
Footnotes
Further reading
External links
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