Schimel launches Supreme Court campaign 16 months before election

 

WAUKESHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Less than eight months after liberals took control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel announced he was running in the 2025 race that will again determine the court's majority in this swing state.

Schimel, who's currently serving as a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge, spoke for about 30 minutes Thursday night at Weldall Manufacturing. A theme he kept returning to was stability, as Schimel maintained the new liberal majority would pursue drastic changes that threatened to unsettle the state.

"The behavior of the new majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court demonstrates to us they're going destroy the stability of this state," Schimel said.

Schimel said proof of the pending instability was the court's four liberal-leaning justices taking power away from Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, a conservative, and shifting it to a newly created committee of justices.

Schimel took shots at this opponent, Ann Walsh Bradley, who's seeking a fourth ten-year term on the court. Schimel referred to a ruling in the spring of 2021 that struck down a COVID-19 emergency rule Democratic. Gov. Tony Evers had extended, which included the statewide mask mandate.

"Thank God the Wisconsin Supreme Court put an end to those, but that was not the current Wisconsin Supreme Court," Schimel said. "In fact, my opponent wrote the dissent; she would've kept those emergency rules in place."

Schimel also targeted the court's newest member, Janet Protasiewicz. Conservatives continue to accuse Protasiewicz of tipping her hand on a lawsuit now before the high court; it claims Republicans have drawn the state's legislative maps in a way that's overwhelmingly skewed in Republicans' favor.

Critics say the maps must be off for Republicans to have nearly a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature in a state where four of the last six presidential elections were decided by less than one percentage point. Conservatives maintain the imbalance is a function of liberals clustering in urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison.

During the campaign earlier this year, Protasiewicz described the maps as "rigged" at a candidate forum.

"I will be honest about my views, but I will never prejudge a case," Schimel said.

Liberals responded to Thursday's campaign announcement by saying it's hypocritical for Schimel to lament the idea of an overly political court when he's run for statewide office as a partisan. Schimel was elected attorney general in 2014 before losing to Democrat Josh Kaul in 2018. 

"I think that the important distinction here with Brad Schimel is that he has run for office as a Republican," Lucy Ripp, a spokesperson for the progressive group, A Better Wisconsin Together, said in an interview Thursday.

Schimel also discussed his faith, as well the issues of crime and the state's 2011 Act 10 law, which largely ended collective bargaining rights for public worker unions.

Seven such unions filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the legality of Act 10, which Schimel said was only happening because liberals had retaken control of the court.

"It's had scores of lawsuits already, and here we are again," he said. "Why? Because this majority on the court invited it."

One issue Schimel did not bring up in his speech was abortion. Campaign staff said Schimel would not take questions from reporters Thursday night.

After launching his campaign for state Supreme Court, Brad Schimel played bass guitar. He did not answer questions from reporters.

Liberal groups and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have already made clear they will make abortion rights a big part of the campaign. The state Supreme Court is all but certain to eventually consider a lawsuit filed by Kaul challenging whether the state's near-total abortion ban is enforceable following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Ripp pointed to a 2012 white paper commissioned by the pro-life group, Wisconsin Right to Life. It suggested Republicans back then should not pursue a personhood amendment to the state constitution and instead wait to see if Roe v. Wade would get struck down.

"Brad Schimel was on the record endorsing the idea that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, Wisconsin should revert back to abortion being completely outlawed under a statute from 1849," Ripp said.

Liberals have also signaled they will spend lots of money to remind voters Schimel, as attorney general in 2018, led a 20-state lawsuit that unsuccessfully tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. 

With more than 16 months to go before voters once again decide who controls the high court, one remaining question is whether any other conservative candidates will enter the race, triggering a primary in February 2025 ahead of the April election.

Schimel said he didn't mind the idea of primary, but he added he didn't want conservatives to tear down one another and weaken Bradley's eventual challenger.

"I'm not anointed to this," Schimel said. "I will earn it."