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November 16th, 2024 Len’s Political Note #684 Susan M. Crawford for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
2026 General Election
Judge Susan M. Crawford
On November 5, Donald Trump carried Wisconsin 49.7 – 48.8.
Democrat Tammy Baldwin was reelected US Senator 49.4 to 48.5 – defeating a multimillionaire banker who grew up in Wisconsin, but made his money and lived in California. Baldwin did what Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is struggling to do as they count the final ballots – defeat a multimillionaire outsider running to represent the state he grew up in.
Hopeful Democrats could not flip Wisconsin’s 1st, 3rd, or 8th Congressional districts losing 54-1 to 43.9, 51.4 to 48.6, and 57.4 to 42.6 respectively. Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation will remain 6 Republicans and 2 Democrats.
Democrats had greater success in state legislative races. In 2023, Wisconsin revolted against its Republican gerrymander of its state legislature. It elected Janet Protasiewicz to the Supreme Court, flipping the majority from 4-3 Republican to 4-3 Democrat.
On November 5, with fairer state legislative districts, Democrats made gains in the state Senate. The state Senate had a 22-10 (one vacancy) Republican majority before the election. The state Senate could override Governor Tony Evers’ overrides with little difficulty. With half the state Senate seats up for election, Democrats flipped four seats. The Republican majority in the Wisconsin Senate is now 18=15. Democrats will have a decent chance to gain control of the state Senate in 2026.
In good Wisconsin fashion, the gains in the Senate were balanced, to a degree, in the State Assembly. All seats were up for election on November 5. Democrats were optimistic about making big gains, perhaps gaining a majority. Prior to the election, Republicans had a 64-35 majority, not quite the number required for a legislative veto. Democrats flipped three seats, leaving the Republicans with a 61-38 majority.
Wisconsin is narrowly divided. Democratic bitterness at the gerrymanders that shut them out of state politics has not subsided. Republican confidence in their dominance has been enhanced by their relative success in the Assembly, the Congressional races, and the Presidential race. The story will be extended on April 1, 2025 when Wisconsin has a Supreme Court election.
Ann Walsh Bradley, a Democratic Justice, announced she will not run again. Voters will choose between Democrat Circuit Court Judge Susan M. Crawford and former state Attorney General Brad Schimel.
Schimel, BA Wisconsin-Milwaukee, JD Wisconsin, was elected District Attorney for Waukeshaw, 20 minutes west of downtown Milwaukee, in 2006, His election came after he had worked for 16 years in the District Attorney’s office beginning right out of law school. In 2014, he was elected state attorney general. During his two terms as Attorney General, he successfully opposed a judicial hearing for Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of the documentary, “Making a Murderer,” which claimed that confessions were coerced. He attempted, but failed to restore rules that only allowed abortions by doctors admitted to nearby hospitals. And he succeeded, in 2016, is an appeal to the US Supreme Court, that preserved partisan gerrymandering in the Wisconsin state legislature.
After he was defeated in 2018 for election to a third term, Schimel was appointed as a circuit judge. In 2020, he was criticized twice for violating the apolitical expectations of a state judge – first by serving as the emcee for a county Republican party fund raising event and second for attending a Trump rally at the Waukeshaw airport. He was also criticized, during the pandemic, for refusing to wear a mask while presiding in court. For that violation of a statewide court directive, he was reprimanded and limited to overseeing cases via zoom until he retreated and agreed to wear a mask in court.
Susan M. Crawford grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She went to college in Wisconsin – Lawrence University and then went the University of Iowa for law school which she completed in 1994. She began her legal career as an assistant attorney general in Des Moines. In 1997, she returned to Wisconsin to work there as an assistant attorney general. She describes herself as having handled hundreds of medical related felony cases from health care fraud to patient abuse. By 2000, she had become the Attorney General’s office Director of Criminal Appeals. In 2003, she became Deputy Secretary for Wisconsin’s Department of Employment Relations. In 2006 she started a two year stint as Chief of Staff for the state Department of Corrections. In 2008, she became the administrator of the state Department of Natural Resources and , starting in 2009 she was Chief Legal Council for the Governor.
In 2011, she entered private practice as a partner in the Madison firm Pines Bach. In private practice, she successfully defended the authority of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to make rules for the public schools rather than the governor. She represented a fire fighter whose candidacy for union office had been defeated because “numerous delegates and proxies were improperly seated and therefore ineligible to vote, and that such improprieties affected the outcome of the election.”
When she ran for the Circuit Court in 2018, she explained in an interview: “While at Pines Bach I’ve represented Planned Parenthood to preserve women’s reproductive rights; I also represented the League of Women Voters to protect citizens’ rights to vote. I represented public school teachers and parents in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to protect the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s authority over public education after the legislature tried to hand that power to the governor. I recently co-authored an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative districts.”
Her 2018 campaign was to sit on a criminal court. She further explained: “I’m prepared not just to preside over individual criminal cases, but to collaborate across county government to improve access to justice for all citizens.“
Now campaigning for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she has the following to say:
“I’m running for Supreme Court justice to protect the basic rights and freedoms of Wisconsinites under our constitution. Those rights are threatened by an all-out effort to politicize the court to drive a right-wing agenda – I believe Wisconsin deserves better.
As a former prosecutor and a judge, I know we need Supreme Court justices who understand what it takes to keep communities safe, who are impartial and fair, who will use common sense, and who won’t politicize the constitution to undermine our most basic rights. I also believe people in Wisconsin deserve to feel safe as they go about their lives – in their homes, driving down the road, or walking to the grocery store. My top priority in making decisions is always to make our communities safer.
For the first time in years, we have a majority on the court focused on getting the facts right, following the law, and protecting our constitutional rights. We can’t risk having that progress reversed.”
In hopes that partisanship will be minimized, Wisconsin elects its Supreme Court justices in the spring. The election is scheduled for April 1.
Wisconsinites have seen the value in the progress their Supreme Court has made and the state has made. Make certain that, as Susan Crawford says, that progress is not reversed. There is neither a Democratic nor a Republican primary. The characters in this campaign are fixed. It is Susan M. Crawford v Brad Schimel.
April 1 is coming soon. Even though we have just completed an exhausting national election, we cannot stop to lick our wounds. Winning this election could ensure un-gerrymandered districts in Wisconsin for the foreseeable future and the right to an abortion for the women of Wisconsin. Help Susan M. Crawford become the next justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and keep the majority 4-3. DONATE
