The Judicial Politicians of Wisconsin

For a window on what happens when judges become political, take a look at Wisconsin’s new progressive Supreme Court majority. They became a 4-3 majority last week with the ascension of new Justice Janet Protasiewicz, and their first act was an administrative coup.

On Friday the four liberals made changes to court procedures that let them usurp the power of the Chief Justice, including control of the calendar for oral arguments, rules hearings and administrative conferences. They also issued a new rule requiring dissents to be written within seven days of the majority opinion.

Why flex their power so soon and without the usual judicial collegiality? Perhaps because control of the judicial calendar means control of the political calendar.

The court may soon hear challenges to the state’s legislative maps, the same maps that Justice Protasiewicz called “rigged” when she was running this year in an election for the Supreme Court seat. Limiting dissent writing to seven days will speed up the timetable for rulings and give conservatives less time to marshal their arguments. Imagine the uproar if six conservative Justices pulled that stunt at the U.S. Supreme Court.

National and Wisconsin Democrats have long wanted to overturn the state’s legislative maps, and now they’re raising their bid. The Campaign Legal Center, Law Forward, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard and other groups are asking the Wisconsin court to overturn the legislative maps and issue a “writ quo warranto” to require all state legislators, including those elected in November 2022, to run again in newly drawn districts.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court approved the current Wisconsin legislative maps in 2022, after initially approving maps drawn by Gov. Tony Evers. When the Evers maps were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court approved the current ones, which were drawn by the GOP Legislature.

But the petitioners are still counting on the new liberal court majority they helped to elect to overturn the maps—pronto. Elections that were held in “unconstitutionally configured districts.” the petition says, should be declared “unlawful” and the Court should “order special elections in November 2024 for all . . . state senate districts that would not otherwise occur until November 2026.”

The petitioners suggest the Supreme Court issue its ruling by March 19, 2024, and no wonder: Nominating papers for the November 2024 election begin circulating April 15.

Translation: The sooner the court tosses the maps, the sooner Democrats can elect a new progressive legislature. The goal is to flip enough seats to create a new Democratic legislative majority in Wisconsin. This would help Mr. Evers overturn former Gov. Scott Walker’s collective-bargaining reforms known as Act 10 and kill Wisconsin’s school-choice programs.

The Wisconsin constitution says the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court “shall be the administrative head of the judicial system.” Current Chief Justice Annette Ziegler called the new liberal majority’s changes an “attempt to gut the Chief Justice’s constitutional authority as administrator of the court.” That sounds right. The progressive four show no concern about looking political, as they race to turn the Badger State into Minnesota or Illinois.