Milwaukee (CN) — Wisconsin could look markedly different after voters head to the polls April 1 to fill a vacancy that will determine the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court, as well as considering a referendum to preserve a strict voter ID law. Even billionaire Elon Musk is paying attention.
Spending on the state Supreme Court race has already surpassed $30 million, and Musk’s PACs are putting a finger on the scale that could break up the high court’s 4-3 liberal majority.
Plus, a proposed constitutional amendment that survived two legislatures could preserve a photo ID law that Democrats have been fighting for over a decade.
Although the high court race is officially nonpartisan, justices tend to lean liberal or conservative. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal and the first woman to be elected to the state’s court rather than appointed in 1995, will retire this year. Her tenure is the fifth-longest in the court’s 177-year history.
Two candidates are vying for Bradley’s seat on the spring ballot, and a large swath of voters still do not have an opinion about either candidate.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel is one of those candidates. On his website, he says justices have engaged in “dramatic overreach” and are “leading [the] state to destruction.”
Schimel is running on a conservative platform, highlighting his time as a prosecutor and his single term as Wisconsin’s attorney general. He has been endorsed by several police and firefighter associations, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
His opponent is Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. Also a former prosecutor and former assistant attorney general, Crawford’s liberal platform rests on hot-button issues like abortion and workers rights, according to her website.
Crawford is endorsed by 177 current and former Wisconsin judges — including four out of the seven current state Supreme Court justices, several sheriffs, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Planned Parenthood and a handful of union organizations.
The state’s high court has tackled several cases recently with big implications, including the governor’s partial veto authority, two challenges to abortion law, worker’s rights policy, and election restrictions. If Schimel is elected, the outcome of these cases could look very different.
In 2023, the race between Justice Janet Protasiewicz and former Justice Daniel Kelly smashed records, ringing up to $51 million, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks spending for major elections.
Spending for Bradley’s seat on the bench has already surpassed $30 million, more than half of which was shelled out by political action committees, or PACs, and interest groups.
America PAC and Building America’s Future, both Musk-backed super PACs, have spent a total of $2,657,912 on critical ads targeting Crawford and $3,580,298 on positive ads and canvassing for Schimel, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
In all, the shadow campaign behind the election for the state Supreme Court is favoring Schimel. There is more pro-Schimel PAC spending than pro-Crawford, but that doesn’t mean she lacks high-profile support. Crawford has raised almost $3 million more than Schimel, much of that coming from her party.
Among registered voters, 38% still don’t have an opinion on Schimel, while 58% don’t have any opinion of Crawford.
As the U.S. Supreme Court tosses more culture war issues like abortion, gerrymandering, and election rules to the states to hash out, Professor Henrik Schatzinger says money is going to keep pouring in — for better or for worse.
Schatzinger, who teaches political science at Ripon College in central Wisconsin, has focused his studies in recent years on the role of money in state politics. He has found that while more money can translate into higher turnout, it’s more likely that people will be motivated by negative partisanship, or a dislike of the opposing candidate’s policy.
“In this polarized environment, state elections are often a referendum on national politics,” Schatzinger said. “If this election is a referendum on the Trump administration, money can only do so much and Schimel’s spending edge may not become a win.”
Still, dark money in state politics may have other consequences. Sara Benesh teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and has found in her research that more money means more problems in judicial elections.
In Wisconsin, there are laws limiting individual contributions to political candidates. Super PACs and interest groups, on the other hand, have no ceiling thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC.
Benesh says flooding Supreme Court races with dark money leads to voters viewing the justices as politicians, and voters don’t like politicians.
“The public affords confidence and legitimacy to the courts because they view them as separate from politics, but when we paint candidates for the bench in the same color as regular politicians, then the court isn’t special anymore,” Benesh said.
The high court is expected to rule on whether a law written in 1849 that bans abortion without exceptions can stand before the winner of April’s race begins their tenure, but oral arguments on a separate abortion case brought by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin have not been scheduled. Come spring, the fate of abortion rights in Wisconsin could be clear before briefs are even filed.
Sandy Haeger, who was protesting the Trump administration outside of Milwaukee City Hall, said all she knew about the candidates was there is one conservative and one liberal.
“I should probably know more than I do, but based on what’s going on in this world, we just need someone in office who is going to stand for abortion rights,” Haeger said, raising her voice over the sound of honking cars and political chants.
Also on the ballot is a highly contested referendum requiring photo ID for voters, which would amend the constitution without changing any laws.
The state legislature passed a referendum question along party lines in January with careful wording: “Photographic identification for voting. Shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?”
Referendums are designed to confuse voters in Wisconsin, according to Elena Price, a Dane County voter who is active in local politics but didn’t know the question would be on the spring ballot.
Wisconsin voters already must show a valid, unexpired photo ID for their vote to count. That could be a driver’s license, certain student IDs, a state identification card or a passport. Despite the range of acceptable forms of identification, some say the law still disenfranchises voters.
“Often people can only get a free DMV ID if they know to ask for it, and not every student ID is valid under the statute,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative. “For folks who work long hours or have kids, just getting to the DMV to get the ID is a barrier. So, we have to consider the trade-offs when voter fraud is almost zero.”
According to a Marquette University Law School poll, 73% of voters favor the referendum.
Former Governor Scott Walker signed the photo ID requirement into law 13 years ago, but the changing political landscape today could explain why the referendum is coming up now, according to Godar.
In 2023, the state Supreme Court ruled that voting maps drawn up by Republicans were gerrymandered along party lines and unconstitutional. The high court upheld the old maps in 2022 when it still had a conservative majority.
“The main thing this amendment would do is it would make it much harder for a Democratic legislature to loosen voting law in the state, and the new maps make that possible for the first time in a long time,” said Godar.
It’s rare but not unheard of for photo ID policies to be enshrined in state constitutions, according to Godar. Since 2011, six other states have added voter ID amendments to their constitutions.
State Republicans tout the state’s strict requirements as increasing election security and creating trust in the voting process. The goal of the referendum is to add stability to the entire system, according to Republican state Senator Van H. Wanggaard. He says it makes the jobs of poll workers easier and brings clarity to the whole process.
“Most people that exercise their right to vote, they’re clued in,” Wanggaard said. “Anybody who doesn’t has got to be living in a vacuum. I mean, you need an ID to buy a can of spray paint or a bottle of cough medicine, so that’s just the times.”
Wanggaard went on to criticize the state Supreme Court’s rollback on issues like Act 10 and voting maps, which he says were politically charged decisions: “We can’t just relitigate something because they didn’t like it. I don’t know that we absolutely have [integrity in the court system] all the time.”