MADISON, Wis. — Liberals expanded their majority on Wisconsin’s top court Tuesday, boosting Democrats as they seek to curtail GOP power in a swing state that is home to some of the nation’s closest elections and most contentious ideological battles.
Voters gave Chris Taylor a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court, the Associated Press projected, widening the liberal majority from 4-3 to 5-2.
Taylor’s victory over conservative Maria Lazar, a fellow judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, positions liberals to keep their majority until at least 2030. Liberals could gain an additional seat next year in a race to succeed a retiring conservative justice.
The state’s high court could in the coming years take up hot-button cases on abortion and union restrictions, as well as high-stakes litigation with national implications for congressional redistricting and election disputes. In 2020, the court with a one-vote margin upheld Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump in the state’s presidential vote.
A year ago, Wisconsin was home to the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. Billionaire Elon Musk and others spent more than $100 million as liberals and conservatives vied for control of the court. The liberal candidate prevailed, protecting that bloc’s majority.
This year’s race was sleepy because the candidates were running for a seat being vacated by a conservative and the majority was no longer in play. As of last week, $8.9 million had been spent, with Taylor’s campaign and allied groups enjoying a 9-1 advantage, according to a review by the news site WisPolitics.com.
The race is technically nonpartisan, but Taylor received help from Democrats, and Lazar from Republicans. Taylor, a former Democratic state lawmaker and Planned Parenthood lobbyist, spent the last days of the campaign appearing with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and other Democrats. Lazar closed out her campaign by visiting county GOP offices.
The liberals’ takeover of the court in 2023 following a high-profile campaign was a seismic event in Wisconsin’s politics. For the previous 15 years, the court had been a safe harbor for conservatives in a swing state. It upheld GOP-backed laws to expand gun rights, require photo identification to vote and limit the power of unions. Conservatives long held that majority even as voters proved fickle in other races, with presidential candidates winning by razor-thin margins and state elections oscillating from Democratic victors one year to Republicans the next.
During their lone debate and in interviews, Taylor and Lazar made their differences clear.
Taylor praised the court’s 4-3 decision last year that blocked a 19th-century law banning nearly all abortions. Lazar said she did not know how she would have ruled in the case but would respect the precedent. Abortion rights advocates in the state have called for fighting abortion restrictions including a 24-hour waiting period, signaling that more litigation is likely.
Taylor criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the ruling that for nearly half a century guaranteed a right to abortion. Lazar said overturning Roe was good because it allowed states to set their own abortion policies.
Wisconsin courts are now considering two lawsuits challenging the fairness of a congressional map that has given Republicans six House seats and Democrats two. The cases will probably make their way to the state’s high court, but the justices are not expected to rule before this fall’s midterm elections.
As a lawmaker, Taylor railed against gerrymandered districts drawn by Republicans who control the legislature. She said during the campaign that she could not comment on the pending cases, but supports fairness and protecting voter rights.
As an attorney for the state Justice Department in 2012, Lazar defended maps that were drawn to favor Republicans. She said in a recent interview that she opposes nonstop litigation over maps, believing that districts should be drawn once a decade and any lawsuits should be handled soon afterward.
Future disputes over election results could come before the court, just as they did after the 2020 presidential election. Taylor said the court properly upheld Biden’s victory over Trump. Lazar declined to say how she would have ruled in the case but said Biden won the election.
A decade and a half ago, the state adopted a law that all but eliminated collective bargaining for public employees, greatly weakening unions that had long helped Democrats. Conservatives who controlled the state Supreme Court upheld the law at the time. A new challenge to the union restrictions is now before an appeals court and expected to reach the high court.
Lazar defended the measure as an attorney for the state when it was first passed. Taylor has long criticized it. Both said they could not say what they think of the merits of the new challenge because they may have to rule on it.
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