Eyeing Voting Rights, Liberals Aim to Secure Wisconsin's Supreme Court through 2030
Liberals have an opportunity next month to lock down a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court through 2030, which would hand them a critical backstop during the next presidential election, as the right floats new ideas on how to take over election administration.
Ever since he lost Wisconsin’s electoral votes in 2020, Donald Trump and his allies have spread lies about those results and baselessly blamed his defeat on fraudulent mail ballots, winning a key legal victory in 2022 when the state supreme court’s conservative majority banned ballot drop boxes. But that win was short-lived; liberals flipped the court in 2023 and restored drop boxes ahead of the next presidential election.
Rebecca Bradley, the conservative justice who authored the 2022 decision banning drop boxes, is retiring this year, and two judges on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, liberal Chris Taylor and conservative Maria Lazar, are running to replace her on April 7. Should Taylor win, liberals would expand their hold on the court to a 5-2 majority. Liberals have not had such an advantage on this court since at least the 1970s, according to analysis by Wisconsin political scientist Alan Ball.
A Taylor win would also prevent conservatives from flipping the court until at least the end of this decade, barring an unforeseen death or early resignation, as Wisconsin faces continued legal debates on elections, abortion, labor rights, and the role courts should play in overseeing immigration enforcement.
https://boltsmag.org/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-lazar-taylor/