'Consequential': Wisconsin Supreme Court 'flips to liberal control' for first time in 15 years
In April, liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated far-right social conservative Dan Kelly by 11 percent in a Wisconsin Supreme Court case. Protasiewicz relentlessly hammered Kelly as an anti-abortion extremist, also slamming him as a conspiracy theorist who refused to accept the 2020 presidential election results. And it worked.
Protasiewicz's victory wouldn't have been especially surprising in a Democratic stronghold like California or Massachusetts, but she enjoyed a double-digit win in a state that went to Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Technically, it was a nonpartisan race, yet Democrats rallied around Protasiewicz while MAGA Republicans and far-right white evangelicals favored Kelly.
On Tuesday, August 1, Protasiewicz will be sworn in as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, and Associated Press reporter Scott Bauer notes that the Court "flips to liberal control for the first time in 15 years."
"Janet Protasiewicz will mark the start of her term with a swearing-in ceremony in the state Capitol Rotunda, the type of pomp and circumstance typically reserved for governors," Bauer reports. "Protasiewicz's win carries tremendous weight in Wisconsin, a battleground where the State Supreme Court has been the last word on some of the biggest political and policy battles of the past decade-plus."
Protasiewicz's presence on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Bauer notes, could affect "battles over voting rules and elections" as well as "the state's abortion ban, Republican-drawn political boundary lines and a host of other hot-button political issues."
Bauer points out, however, that even though Protasiewicz is a liberal, that doesn't automatically make her an ideologue and doesn't mean she won't vote with conservative justices at times.
"Even as liberals have high hopes that the new Court will rule in their favor, there are no guarantees," the AP reporter observes. "Republicans were angered when a conservative candidate they backed in 2019 turned out to sometimes side with liberal justices."
READ MORE: Abortion rights enjoy a double-digit victory in contentious Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Nonetheless, Democracy Docket's Paige Anderholm, in an article published on August 1, argues that having Protasiewicz on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will be advantageous for voting rights.
"As the country turns to another presidential election in 2024," Anderholm explains, "Protasiewiczs' presence on the Court is critical. Given its role as a consequential battleground state, Wisconsin became a target for litigation starting in 2020 — a trend that continued through the 2022 midterms as the GOP sought to undermine mail-in voting. In 2022, Wisconsin saw the third-highest volume of litigation in the country, with three times as many lawsuits seeking to restrict voting access compared to those seeking to expand or protect voting rights."
READ MORE: Wisconsin Republican blasts pro-lifer’s suggestion 'workforce gap driven by low birth rates'
Find the Associated Press' full report at this link and Democracy Docket's article here.
