More Turmoil in Wisconsin Over State Supreme Court

Monday, October 9th, 2023 -- 9:00 AM

(Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) The highest offices of Wisconsin government are locked in a ferocious power struggle ahead of the 2024 presidential election now that the new liberal majority on the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a lawsuit that could upend the Republican majority in the Legislature and trigger an unprecedented impeachment of a sitting justice.

According to Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the four liberals who control the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed on Friday to take up a legal challenge to the state's legislative boundaries that have helped Republicans secure just shy of a supermajority of seats in the statehouse of this battleground state.

The court's newest justice, Janet Protasiewicz, also on Friday rejected calls from GOP legislative leaders to recuse herself from lawsuits before the court challenging the state's legislative maps, which she described on the campaign trail as "rigged," a decision the Assembly speaker has warned could push him to start impeachment proceedings.

An effort to remove Protasiewicz could spur even more upheaval, with possibilities ranging from lawsuits to block lawmakers from carrying out their goals to a surprise resignation by the new justice in order to allow Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to appoint a new justice to the court.

The turmoil at the top of two co-equal branches of government is playing out as Republican lawmakers continue to overhaul who oversees elections by considering ways to remove two top officials at the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

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