Mon. Mar 18th, 2024

From today’s New York Times:

On April 7, I was on the ballot in an election that should not have happened.

I was running for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court against an appointed incumbent. I came to find out after the election that incumbents in Wisconsin have lost Supreme Court elections only twice in the last half-century — had I known that when I started, I might never have run.

The central theme of our campaign was a message of restoring the public’s trust in the judicial system. It was a winning message: We pulled in a resounding 55 percent of the vote.

And it will guide me as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. I will make decisions based on the law — we must get away from a partisan view of the law.

The election was a good example of what should not happen. Gov. Tony Evers had formally called on the Legislature to postpone it. Deadlines for returning ballots were extended.

But in a mad flurry of activity the day before the election — probably never seen before and hopefully never to be seen again — partisan court majorities in cases at the Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Courts reinstated the election and removed the deadline extension for absentee ballots to be returned.

Scant hours before the polls opened, the people of Wisconsin were confused and worried: On one hand, their government was telling them clearly to stay away from one another. On the other, they were being told that if they wanted to continue having a democracy, they had to show up in person, stand in long lines and vote.

Read the complete article here.

By Editor