When the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe vs Wade, the State of Wisconsin immediately reverted to an abortion ban that was passed in 1849. This law is so old and archaic and so poorly written, it is practically unenforceable. It is also all but guaranteed to come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court at some point in time. This naturally makes it the top issue in the upcoming election for an open seat on the state supreme court.
After last week's primary election, the top two candidates who emerged to run in the general election is progressive Janet Protasiewicz and MAGA Republican Dan Kelly. As you can imagine, there is a stark difference between them.
Protasiewicz has not even tried to hide that she feels that abortion is a women's decision to make. The Republicans are in full-fledged panic mode over this, seeing how badly it hurt them in the 2022 midterm elections. They have filed a complaint against her, saying she illegally said how she would vote on this case, even though it hasn't even been filed yet.
On the other hand, her opponent, is a Christian Nationalist who is all for a complete abortion ban. He has been endorsed by all the anti-abortion groups and had even worked for one, Wisconsin Right to Life. In fact, they were so impressed with his work that they wrote a letter of recommendation to then Governor Scott Walker when he appointed Kelly to the Supreme Court in 2016:
The ad references a 2016 letter of recommendation from Heather Weininger, the executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life. The letter came when Kelly applied for an appointment to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
“Dan Kelly is someone who I have known professionally for many years and who has provided great counsel to Wisconsin Right to Life in legal manners, as well as to a previous employer of mine, and has done great work with the Federalist Society in Wisconsin,” Weininger wrote.
Weininger and Kelly’s campaign spokesperson, Chad Doran, did not respond to emails Monday asking what work Kelly did for the group.
They endorsed him again in 2020 when he ran for election to a full 10-year term, although it didn't help him much when he got clobbered by another liberal woman, Justice Jill Karofsky.
To tweak the GOP's noses even further, Protasiewicz has said that she would not recuse herself from any abortion related cases which might come before the court:
Protasiewicz said if elected, she would not step away from cases involving abortion policy despite her campaign's intense focus on the issue, which has defined the race after Wisconsin doctors stopped performing abortions following last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul have filed a lawsuit seeking to repeal the state's abortion ban, which will likely end up at the state Supreme Court.
"I've been very, very clear and very, very careful that I have talked to people about what my personal values are ... I make sure everybody understands that I will only be making decisions based on what the law is, and based on what the Constitution is," Protasiewicz said.
The GOP can't say a thing about that because it was the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, including Kelly, who decided that it should be up to individual Justices to decide when they would recuse themselves.
You just have to love it when the GOP get burned by their own rules.
The general election is April 4, 2023. Something tells me that this will have a much higher turnout than ever before for an off year election.
