'Running against the richest man in the world': Crawford makes Musk focal point of Mequon rally

MEQUON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- In the final two days of campaigning for a race that will decide control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Democratic-backed candidate, Susan Crawford, said she believed Elon Musk was trying to buy votes with his $2 million giveaway Sunday evening.

Crawford held rallies Sunday afternoon in Elkhorn and Mequon. At her stop in closely contested Ozaukee County, Crawford was joined by Sen. Tammy Baldwin and one of the state Supreme Court's four current progressive justices, Jill Karofsky.

Speaking to a room about 200 supporters, Crawford painted the race as one between her and her GOP-backed opponent, Brad Schimel, and also Elon Musk, the billionaire special advisor to President Donald Trump who has poured more than $20 million into the race for Schimel.

"I gotta tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could've dreamed I'd be running against the richest man in the world," Crawford said during her remarks.

Crawford's events came against the backdrop of Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filing an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court Sunday. He asked the high court to intervene and prohibit Musk from giving money away to two people at a town hall event he hosted in Green Bay Sunday evening.

Musk initially posted to his social media platform, X, the offer was for people who voted in the Supreme Court race. In Wisconsin, it's illegal to pay someone to vote. Musk deleted the post and clarified the offer was for people who signed a petition stating they oppose "activist judges." 

Speaking with reporters, Crawford said she believed Musk's offer amounted to bribery.

"It sure seems like it," she said. "You know, the timing of it, it's right on the eve of the election."

SCOWIS justice campaigns with Crawford

Karofsky declined to answer questions from a CBS 58 reporter, who asked whether she'd recuse herself from Kaul's case against Musk, as well as whether the court planned to issue an order Sunday.

Musk's lawyers had requested both Karofsky and another progressive justice, Rebecca Dallet, to recuse themselves.

The court issued a unanimous ruling Sunday evening denying Kaul's request for the Supreme Court to hear the case and issue an emergency injunction keeping Musk from moving forward with the giveaway. The order did not include any reasoning for the decision to deny Kaul, but both Karofsky and Dallet issued orders denying the motion for recusal, citing "time constraints."

The order acknowledged the calls for recusal but stated the "rule of necessity" superseded the question of whether any justices should recuse over their stated support for Crawford in the campaign.

Mapping an outcome

Control of the state Supreme Court will decide the future of the 2011 Act 10 law that largely eliminated collective bargaining rights for public workers, with the exception of some police and fire unions. The court is also still weighing a challenge to Wisconsin's near-total abortion ban that was enacted in 1849 and returned to the forefront after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

During Sunday's event, Baldwin also said the race could decide whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court redraws the state's congressional voting maps. Democrats have argued the current maps are unfair, pointing to Republicans holding six of Wisconsin's eight U.S. House seats when statewide elections are often decided by less than a percentage point.

"Wisconsin, with fair maps, could impact the balance of who controls the House of Representatives," Baldwin told the room in Mequon.

Crawford did not mention maps in her remarks and told reporters after the event she didn't think it was an appropriate subject for her to address.

"As a judge and as a future justice on the Supreme Court, I don't pre-decide any issues that might end up in the court," she said. "And that certainly goes for any issue about congressional districts."

Wisconsin's current congressional maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who followed guidance set in 2021 by a then-conservative Supreme Court majority to take a "least change" approach to the previous maps, which Republicans drew in 2011.

The current Supreme Court rejected a previous Democratic challenge to the congressional maps, although they struck down the 2021 legislative district maps Republicans draw, finding them a gerrymander that favored the GOP.

While Crawford said she did would not discuss the congressional maps, she did not take issue with the idea of Baldwin or other national Democrats making House maps an issue in the campaign.

"I'm not talking about it in my speech. It's just not something that's appropriate for me, as a judge, to talk about," Crawford said. "But for other elected officials, they can take policy positions that judges really shouldn't take."