Wisconsin’s critical race

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 1st of April.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Up first, Wisconsin heads to the polls.

After 30 years on the bench, a liberal justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is retiring. That’ll leave the seven-member court evenly divided ideologically. Today, voters will decide which way the balance will tip.

EICHER: Conservatives hope to reclaim the majority after losing it in 2023, and they are spending big to do it. As of Wednesday, spending on the race has broken a record: $81 million from groups inside and outside the state. That’s almost $30 million more than the race two years ago.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Leah Savas now with a story on where the candidates stand.

CAMPAIGN AD: When she was a lawyer, Susan Crawford defended Planned Parenthood, and she personally trusts women to decide whether to have an abortion.

LEAH SAVAS: That’s the message of a March ad from Susan Crawford’s campaign. She’s the liberal Wisconsin judge competing with conservative Judge Brad Schimel for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Crawford is hoping pro-abortion sentiment will fuel her victory.

CRAWFORD: There's been a lot of talk about this Supreme Court race, but here's what's really at stake. Brad Schimel wants to make sure women don't have the right to make their own health care decisions. If he wins, that right is gone.

There is currently no right to abortion enshrined in the Wisconsin constitution or in state Supreme Court precedent. But Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit last year trying to change that. Susan Crawford previously represented that Planned Parenthood chapter as a lawyer, and the court has already agreed to hear the case.

DEGNER: And what that case would do is it's seeking to create a constitutional right for abortion in the state of Wisconsin.

That’s Daniel Degner, president of the Christian advocacy group Wisconsin Family Council.

DEGNER: And so that case has not been heard yet, but it is very likely that if the liberal Susan Crawford wins this race, that then that case will be heard, and it is very likely that the liberal state Supreme Court would find a right to abortion in the state constitution under our protections for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

In his campaign, Schimel has emphasized that it’s not up to judges to decide the legality of abortion. He and his wife adopted two daughters born to teen moms facing unplanned pregnancies.

SCHIMEL: I’m personally grateful for the choice their birth mothers made. But a judge’s job is to apply the law, not make the law. The people of Wisconsin through referendum or their elected representatives should decide the question of abortion. I’m Brad Schimel, and I will respect the will of the people.

In November, the court heard another case regarding a state law that protects unborn babies from abortion throughout pregnancy. It became law in 1849, but the legislature has not repealed it in all this time. So the state’s own pro-abortion attorney general sued in 2022 to block its enforcement. Crawford’s campaign suggests Schimel could be the deciding vote in that case.

NARRATOR: Brad Schimel wants to take us back—back to an abortion ban from 1849.

But according to the Wisconsin Court System’s public information office, the court will issue that ruling before the new justice is sworn in. So even if Schimel wins, he won’t get to weigh in on the case. The current liberal majority on the state Supreme Court will likely permanently block enforcement of that law.

Still, with another abortion case on the horizon that could lead to a state right to kill unborn babies, Degner from Wisconsin Family Council says this election is key.

DEGNER: If Brad Schimel loses this election, for conservatives to be able to take the court back, they have to win in … 2026 they have to win in 2027 and then they have to win again in 2028 before they can have the opportunity to take the court back.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

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