MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) - Electing a liberal state Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin is key to the future of the Democratic party, the nation's House minority leader has said with his mouth and checkbook.
Hakeem Jefferies called liberal Susan Crawford the "Democratic candidate," even though judicial elections in Wisconsin are supposed to be nonpartisan. Still, with the majority in the balance in April 1's election, it's clear Democrats support Crawford, a circuit court judge, and Republicans favor Brad Schimel, also a circuit court judge who previously served as state attorney general.
Congressional maps are a possible issue in the future, "if you have an enlightened supreme court," Jefferies said on a Democrat "National Update and Call to Action."
Jeffries complained the current congressional lines have resulted in six GOP members of the U.S. House of Representatives as opposed to two Democrats, despite the Wisconsin's status as a swing state.
Jeffries' campaign gave Crawford's $18,000 on March 17, as the race shatters spending records for judicial elections.
Crawford and Schimel are running to fill the seat of outgoing Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. According to a March 9-10 poll, they are locked in a dead heat for the April 1 election. The winner will decide which side gets a 4-3 majority in Wisconsin, which does not assign political parties to judicial candidates.
The race has drawn millions from groups outside of the state, including Elon Musk's America PAC, and out-of-state individuals who donate heavily to Democratic causes.
Schimel recently scored endorsements from President Donald Trump and NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre, a former Green Bay Packer.
“Brad Schimel is running against Radical Left Liberal Susan Crawford, who has repeatedly given child molesters, rapists, women beaters, and domestic abusers ‘light’ sentences," Trump said on Truth Social.
“She is the handpicked voice of the Leftists who are out to destroy your State, and our Country — And if she wins, the Movement to restore our Nation will bypass Wisconsin. All Voters who believe in Common Sense should GET OUT TO VOTE EARLY for Brad Schimel.”
Two years ago, spending reached $56 million in an election that saw Janet Protasiewicz give liberals a majority on the court. Topics like redistricting and abortion are popular reasons for interest in the state.
Schimel's campaign says Crawford is "funded by George Soros, the biggest supporter of soft-on-crime prosecutors in America." A list of felons who received lighter sentences from Crawford than recommended by prosecutors includes a four-year sentence to a man found guilty of sexual assault of two children eight years apart and another child molester allowed to live across the street from an elementary school while out on a $500 bond.
In the two years since Protasiewicz's election, conservatives have accused the liberal majority of a power grab, tyranny and gutting the people's access to courts.
Conservative justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley has been an outspoken critic, filing dissenting opinions in key cases that accused the liberals of replacing the law with their own ideologies.
In one case, the liberals overturned a decision a then-conservative-led Supreme Court had issued two years earlier. Democrats said the law allows absentee voters to put their votes in ballot drop boxes, rather than return them in the mail or in person.
The decision went against the GOP majority in the legislature, which said the law forbid drop boxes. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers intervene and urged the liberals to overrule the previous ruling, which they did.
"The majority again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda," Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote.
"The majority began this term by tossing the legislative maps adopted by this court... for the sole purpose of facilitating 'the redistribution of political power in the Wisconsin legislature.'
"The majority ends the term by loosening the legislature's regulations governing the privilege of absentee voting in the hopes of tipping the scales in future elections."