The Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which is reportedly the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, will ultimately decide the state’s balance of power and whether its 1849 abortion ban is upheld, The Washington Post reported.
While Tuesday’s race is officially nonpartisan, “the candidates, political parties, and ideological groups have spent more than $30 million on the race, obliterating the record for a judicial election that was established two decades ago in Illinois,” according to the report.
…”[R]aces for the Wisconsin Supreme Court lost their apolitical sheen long ago and the candidates this year are campaigning more like members of Congress than jurists,” the report states. “That’s particularly true for the liberal candidate, Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, who has touted her support for access to abortion and decried the state’s election maps, which the court could take up, as ‘rigged.”‘
After the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last summer, an 1849 Wisconsin law banning abortions except to save the life of the mother went into effect, and abortion clinics shut down or stopped performing abortions across the state. The Democrat governor and state attorney general filed a lawsuit to overturn the ban, which a judge in Madison is considering.
That case “is expected to make its way to the state Supreme Court in the next year or two,” the report states. And “where the candidates stand is in little doubt.”
“I can tell you with certainty that if I’m elected on April 4th, I’m sure that we will be looking — I am sure we will be looking — at that 1849 law,” Protasiewicz said at a campaign stop in March, adding that she “believe[s] in a woman’s right to choose.”
In an interview with local media, Protasiewicz said she believes the Supreme Court decided the Dobbs case “incorrectly.” The Dobbs case notably overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to individual states.
“Well, let’s talk about the Dobbs case…Women have, for the last 50 years, relied on the Roe v. Wade case. They’ve relied on it to be able to make their own decisions regarding bodily autonomy, and in my opinion, our Supreme Court in Dobbs decided that case incorrectly. It ignored precedent. It ignored the Constitution. It ignored the will of the people,” she claimed, despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution nowhere says anything about a right to abortion.
With regards to potentially one day hearing the lawsuit against the state’s abortion ban, she declined to say how she would rule. However, she has stated that she believes women have a right to abort their unborn babies.
“What I tell people is that’s my value. That’s my personal opinion,” she said.
Protasiewicz’s opponent, Justice Daniel Kelly, has criticized her for “telegraphing how she would rule on abortion if she had the chance,” according to the report. Kelly said he believes judicial candidates should not broadcast their political opinions in order to maintain the view that courts are impartial.
“This is why we don’t talk about politics,” Kelly said of his opponent at the same campaign stop in March. “This is why we don’t talk about personal values. There has to be a commitment to the actual work of the courts. And if you can’t confine yourself to that, maybe you’re running for the wrong office.”
Conservative justices hold a shaky 4-3 majority in the state Supreme Court, considered uncertain because Justice Brian Hagedorn is seen as an unreliable conservative who occasionally buckles on issues where the leftwing legacy media piles on. However, Justice Patience Roggensack is not seeking reelection, meaning conservatives “could lose control of the court for the first time since 2008,” the report states. The results of the election could also impact how lawmakers redraw the state’s legislative districts, parents’ rights, Second Amendment rights, and religious liberty.