The NPR Politics Podcast - Abortion Access Likely At Stake In Wisconsin's Supreme Court Race

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

A race for one seat on the Wisconsin state Supreme Court has broken national spending records. The winner could be the key swing vote on cases deciding everything from abortion rights to redistricting in the state.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and Wisconsin Public Radio's Shawn Johnson.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Amy Thorne in Tallahassee, Florida, and I'm sitting on my front porch with my cup of coffee, listening to all the birds wake up. This podcast was recorded at 1218 p.m. on Monday, the 3rd of April. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Nice. It sounded like ASMR. I felt immediately relaxed. She seemed relaxed.

Maybe we can just all go to sleep right now. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And with us today is Sean Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio's Capitol Bureau chief from Madison. Hey, Sean. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to have you with us. I was just there, just saw you. You sure were. And now we are here on the pod talking about a really big story in Wisconsin.

The state Supreme Court election is tomorrow. Big money has poured into the state, all for this one seat on The state Supreme Court election is tomorrow. Big money has poured into the state all for this one seat on the state Supreme Court. The airwaves are blanketed with ads for what is supposed to be a nonpartisan position. So, Sean, tell us what's at stake in this race. So what's at stake is that we have a Supreme Court right now that is controlled by a 4-3 conservative majority. And the winner of this race will determine whether that continues for probably another few years or whether liberals will flip the court for the first time in 15 years. And that decision is taking place at a

pretty pivotal time for the court when big issues could be coming before justices, including abortion, redistricting, and issues related to next year's presidential race. So just walk us through who the candidates are. And this feels weird even saying it for a judicial race, but what are their ideologies? They are officially nonpartisan races, which is kind of comical if you live here because they are extremely political at this point. On the Democratic side, you have Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasewicz, and she has deep support among Democrats. She has been outspoken about her beliefs on issues like abortion during this campaign. She's received strong financial support from the state Democratic Party. On the Republican side, you have Dan Kelly, a former state Supreme Court

justice who was appointed by former Republican Governor Scott Walker. And Dan Kelly lost his first race for the court in 2020. He is really downplayed in his own statements during this campaign. His politics basically says they don't matter. He wants to be just a boring judge who interprets the law and the Constitution. He doesn't want to be creative or original. But his Republican resume is very long. Back in 2012, he, as a private attorney, defended Republican-drawn legislative maps in federal court. And just last year, as a private attorney, his clients included the state and national Republican parties. So people generally know

where these candidates are in terms of their politics. And I shouldn't even say generally. I think people who are going in to vote are very well aware of where Dan Kelly and Janet Protasewicz stand. Yeah, while I was out in Wisconsin, I stopped by the University of Wisconsin. There was a polling place in the Student Union South building and talked to students. Now, obviously, this is not a representative sample of the state. This is, you know, pretty liberal students in a liberal town in a state that is definitely a swing state. But I talked to a student named Claire Lessonjack. She's a freshman. And what she said is what a lot of the students I talked to talked about.

Not having the right to an abortion as an 18-year-old woman, it does affect me a lot. And I'm not, it's not like I'm careless, but you never know when something's going to happen. So I feel like it's better to have there be a choice for me to be able to do whatever I want to do for whatever's best for me in my life and my body. And certainly watching the ads, it seems as though abortion is on the ballot. Yeah. I mean, Janet Protasewicz, the candidate favored by Democrats, has been very out front about her personal beliefs on abortion too. I think from the get-go in this campaign, she has said her personal values are that it is a woman's right to choose. She supports that. And she always couches it by saying, I'm not saying how I would

rule in any case it would come before the court. However, here are my personal beliefs. So she's been especially outspoken about it. You've seen that in her ads. You've seen that in the Democratic turnout operation for this race. They are definitely trying to put abortion on the ballot in what might otherwise be kind of a low-key state Supreme Court race. And when I've gone out and talked to voters who support Janet Protasewicz, they have said the same thing. I don't think there's been one of them who hasn't mentioned abortion as being one of the issues they're voting on in this race. Mara, this is the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history. Why is there so much national attention here?

Well, that's because this race is really, really important. Remember, in 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by a very narrow margin, and then Biden won it in 2020 by also a narrow margin. The Wisconsin Supreme Court at that time threw out Trump's bid to change that outcome. And who controls the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is really important because it's a battleground state. It's not only going to determine whether an 1849 law outlawing abortion completely stays on the books, but also how Wisconsin's legislative and congressional districts are drawn that approaches extreme gerrymandering. And maybe Sean can explain this, where Republicans can get 46% of the vote statewide, but end up with over 60 seats in the state legislature?

Yeah, you're looking right now, actually, Republicans are knocking on the door of a supermajority in both houses of the legislature. There's a special election for a state Senate seat on the ballot tomorrow that would actually give them a two-thirds majority in the state Senate. There are a couple seats shy of it in the state assembly, but they're very close to that. Even without a two-thirds majority in the popular vote, you mean? That is correct. And this Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, has basically said, this is the legislature's call.

We're not going to step in and redraw the maps. It's a political decision. And if it flips to liberals, if Janet Protasewicz wins, she has come out and said, I think the maps are rigged, is the word that she uses, and that she'd like to take another look at those maps. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, more on this high stakes state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. And we're back. And Sean, I want to ask you a question. This is a hugely expensive race getting a lot of national attention by emphasizing the importance of this race. I mean, it has not gone unnoticed by Democrats nationally. Also, because of our campaign

fundraising laws in Wisconsin, which were written about eight years ago by Republicans, state parties here can accept unlimited donations. And so the state party has received some million dollar plus donations from a handful of donors. And they've been able to transfer that money over to the Protesewitz campaign. And because candidates get better rates than outside groups, she has been able to kind of dominate the airwaves in that way. What about the Republican side? They havewaves in that way. What about the Republican side? They have not done it that way. The Dan Kelly campaign has trailed the Protos-Aewis campaign in the candidate fundraising, but outside groups have really come in very heavy for Kelly in the closing weeks of this race. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce is one of the big funders. They are

our state's biggest business group. They've always been involved in these Supreme Court elections, but they are, as you would expect in a race like this, the most involved they've ever been financially. And then a group called Fair Courts America, which is funded by Richard Uline, a GOP mega donor. Big Trump backer. Yeah, and very involved in Wisconsin. I mean, has, you know, big business here, but has been involved in pretty much every state race that I can remember in recent memory. He's had a financial stake in it, and he's hugely on Kelly's side this time. So, Tim mentioned earlier the contradiction between how can you have an election for what's supposed to be a nonpartisan position.

I think it's pretty clear that the Supreme Court seats are actually partisan. But what I'm wondering is if this race, with all of the tsunamis of money coming in from out of state, has caused any introspection among Wisconsin voters about whether they should be electing Supreme Court justices, because not every state does that. Every time we have one of these races, this is our biggest one by far. But every time it seems like we have one of these races and money flows in, and it feels very vicious and very partisan, there's always someone who says, we should maybe look at appointing justices instead. This election thing isn't working out so well, but it doesn't really

seem to take off. Electing justices is part of the way that Wisconsin government runs. I mean, it's in the constitution. There are seven of them. They serve 10-year terms. It's a messy system, but it's something that I guess people have gotten used to for better for worse. Mara, I want to ask you, states are known as the great laboratories of democracy, but we've seen states recently pressured to try to do some undemocratic things. And I am thinking about in 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was asked to weigh in on the presidential election outcome. You know, how vital is this race for Republicans and Democrats nationally? Well, it's super vital. And what you're referring to is at the Wisconsin Supreme Court back then,

it threw out Donald Trump's bid to throw out about a quarter million ballots from Democratic areas in Wisconsin. And that's, you could say, how Joe Biden's victory was secured in Wisconsin. But, you know, one of the things that's happened, which is really interesting, is since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, people are paying a lot more attention to statewide races for things like the Supreme Court, for Board of Election Supervisors, all sorts of local positions that they didn't pay attention to before. I think that's a good thing. You want people paying attention to every aspect of civic life. But whether states are the laboratories of democracy, or as the former head of the Ohio State Democratic Party said in the

title of his book, whether they're laboratories of autocracy, is a big question. And there are a lot of minoritarian institutions that some people would call undemocratic in states, like the Wisconsin Supreme Court blessing this extreme partisan gerrymander. So I think this is a really crucial race. It shines a spotlight on a lot of things that are going to be debated in our country, in other states and nationally. But also, let's face it, this is the only game in town right now. It's kind of like those off-year elections where everybody pays a lot of attention and then extrapolates all these grand lessons from them and predictions for the next election. But there's no doubt that this race is really important. But it also happens to be the only one we've got to talk about right now. And also, it is a swing state where any money that is spent right now on voter turnout operations

is certainly money that will be usefully spent come 2024 when these same parties are trying to turn out voters again. Absolutely. It's an investment. All right. That's a wrap for today. Sean Johnson from Wisconsin Public Radio. Thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. And we will be back in your feeds a little later

than usual tomorrow with news after the expected arraignment of former President Donald Trump. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.