AP Review Finds Many State Supreme Court Candidates Have Weighed in on Topics While Campaigning

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023 -- 8:00 AM

(AP) The Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who Republicans are threatening to impeach over comments she made on the campaign trail about abortion and redistricting isn’t the first member of the court to offer public opinions about major issues of the day.

One conservative justice frequently spoke out in favor of gun rights during her campaign, even producing a political mailer showing her brandishing a shotgun and wearing a hat promoting the NRA.

Another had previously called Planned Parenthood, a frequent litigant in abortion cases, a “wicked organization.” And a former conservative justice faced a barrage of criticism after a campaign filled with misleading information about crime that raised questions about whether he could be impartial in cases involving criminal defendants.

An Associated Press review of previous campaigns and public statements by Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates reveals that both conservatives and liberals have weighed in on topics that could come before the court, sometimes in strikingly strong language.

Despite that record, this is the first time Republicans who have controlled the state Legislature for a dozen years have proposed impeaching a justice. They are threatening to remove Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who was elected earlier this year with a strong statewide majority, if she does not recuse herself from a redistricting case that could cost Republicans their outsized majorities in the Legislature.

Her election flipped control of the court to a 4-3 liberal tilt after 15 years of a conservative majority. “It’s self-serving, selective outrage,” Jay Heck, director of Common Cause of Wisconsin, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said of impeachment. “Where was their outrage and their demands for recusal when conservatives in the past have weighed in about their values?”

On Monday, a former candidate for Supreme Court representing two Protasiewicz voters asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to order the Legislature not to move ahead with impeachment proceedings. The lawsuit argues impeachment is not warranted and would be unconstitutional.

The state’s judicial code prohibits justices and judicial candidates from making promises or commitments to ruling a certain way on any issue, and Protasiewicz adhered to that during her campaign.

Earlier this year, the state commission that investigates complaints against judges dismissed ones it had received related to her comments on redistricting. Trying to campaign for office while not appearing to prejudge any future case has been an increasingly difficult line for judicial candidates to walk.

That is especially true in more recent years as state supreme court races have become highly politicized and attract millions of dollars in campaign cash.

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