Jay Weber Show transcript 11-30-22 7:10am
You’ve probably heard by now: Judge Jennifer Dorow, the judge who presided over the Waukesha Christmas parade trial-is going to officially announce her run for the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat that is opening in spring.
This guarantees that there will be a primary face-off before a conservative candidate is chosen to participate in a general election.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court terms are for ten years, and they are staggered...so that more than one is never up at the same time-
And in spring- longtime justice Pat Roggensack is retiring...so this is an open seat.
These statewide supreme court races are another instance in which incumbency is a big advantage...but an open seat like this has led to very close races in a split state like Wisconsin.
Everyone expects the spring race to be the same.
And I admit- I know nothing about Jennifer Dorow that the average listener doesn’t.
I’ve never met her. I don’t know any more about her than most of you do, having watched her preside over the Daryl brooks trial and do an exemplary job under extremely difficult circumstances.
I was particularly impressed by -over the course of weeks-she was careful to never give Brooks an avenue for appeal. That’s all I know about her. We will learn more-together-over the coming months.
She was appointed to the Waukesha county court in 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and before that worked as both a defense attorney-and as a prosecutor in the Waukesha County DA’s office-so she has experience on both sides of the courtroom-as well as on both sides of the bench.
That’s impressive.
And she’ll have to engage in a run-off election first, with an equally impressive Dan Kelly. The primary for this spring race would be February 21st..and so it’s not that far away.
We just finished one election season-and we are right back into the next one. And once again-it is a super-important one.
I don’t have to tell most people in this audience that conservatives have a nominal 4-3 advantage on the State Supreme Court, and if the liberal candidate wins in spring, things will change significantly, This is an extremely high-stakes race and it's probably going to generate a lot of interest and a lot of outside, national, ‘third party money’ from the left. The state and national democrats are going to go ‘all in’ to take this seat from conservatives and flip the ideological makeup of the court.
Because- if they do- everything WI conservatives have done-and gained-over the last twelve years- will be up for grabs.
Every left-wing activist group in Wisconsin and from around the country will try to find new ways to challenge-every- walker era reform from act ten, to right to work, to castle doctrine: just name a reform, and the activists will challenge it and work to get a case in front of this new-liberal-supreme court.
And unlike Brian Hagedorn-none of the three liberal justices on this court are wishy washy. All of them walk in lockstep with the far left, regardless of what the constitution or the law might say. They are going to overturn every conservative result and rubber stamp every activist liberal ruling that they can.
These are the stakes in spring.
Ben Wikler, the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, is already calling it the most important race in the country next year.
The state and national pro-abortion forces are already saying the same thing: planned parenthood- Wisconsin’s director is quoted as saying: “who voters choose to sit on the court could decide whether women and other people who can become pregnant will be able to access abortion care in Wisconsin for the foreseeable future.”
The left will be-all in- on making that spring race about abortion...and we saw how well that strategy worked just a few weeks ago, in the fall midterm.
This is one reason that Robin Vos immediately said on my show- post-election- that he’s hopeful Evers and the legislature can find some level of agreement on a reasonable abortion bill in spring. One that makes exceptions for rape and incest and whatever other limitations they might agree to. Vos and the GOP don’t want the entire race defined by abortion. It’s the only issue democrats will have an advantage on, but it’s proven to be a powerful one if republicans and conservative candidates don’t ‘answer back’ and do so directly.
This is also likely to be a rare WI Supreme Court race-in which the liberal candidate doesn’t pretend to be a conservative and try to run a campaign that’s mostly about fooling people.
Most often-that’s how these supreme court races go: voters want a person who is tough on crime and strong on the constitution. The republicans run one...and the democrats choose a liberal and then pretend he or she is conservative.
That isn’t likely to be the case this spring. Not with abortion being one of ‘the’ defining issues-and by democrat design.
It leads to the question-for Wisconsin conservatives- is it better to run a woman? Like Jennifer Dorow?
A former supreme court justice is already in the race on the conservative side of the aisle- Daniel Kelly. He has been ‘announced’ and campaigning for some time...and already has some impressive people in politics and the legal community who have endorsed him: we know he would be a consistent conservative-given that he has already sat on this court once.
Governor Scott Walker appointed him to finish out the term of a different judge, and then, when Dan Kelly ran for his first full ten year term-he lost to Jill Karofsky-
And so-the debate has already been enjoined on the right side of the aisle...by Madison insiders and strategists: Dan Kelly has experience. We know how he would rule on cases -because we have a two-year track record. He is a constitutional conservative. There is-zero-chance that he’d surprise us and be another squishy, difficult Brian Hagedorn type...who seems to find reasons-not- to approach cases more honestly.
And so...there are upsides when it comes to going with Dan Kelly as the conservative’s candidate in spring.
Except. He’s already lost once.
He has run a statewide race and didn’t win it.
That is giving some conservatives pause, especially coming off the Tim Michels power failure against Tony Evers just a few weeks ago.
If you remember-Tim Michels had also already run a statewide race- years ago for the US Senate-and lost.
And so, some conservative insiders and observers are ‘gun shy’ on Kelly.
We know that Governor Scott Walker isn’t. He was on the show last week, and reminded everyone that Kelly’s loss came during that bizarre 2020 spring election-in which the republican presidential primary was already decided, and Bernie Sanders was clearly going to lose the nomination to Joe Biden and yet Bernie stayed on the Wisconsin primary ticket to boost turnout-
And i think you get it: if WI democrats thought their vote ‘mattered’ in the presidential primary, they’d be more likely to vote in the primary-and for Jill Karovski- who was on the ballot as a-general election-face off with Dan Kelly.
And apparently, it worked, because Karofski won the race, and Bernie dropped out of the presidential primary the next day. The intent, all along, was simply to stay on the ballot thru those primary races slated for that day.
And so-walker’s point-and the argument from Dan Kelly’s campaign is- it was an odd turnout election that Kelly lost-and in a more traditional-straight up- spring race, he would have won.
We can’t know that, of course. But that’s the argument Kelly and his team will make I’m tested on the court...you know I’m a judicial, pro-constitution, tough on crime conservative. I have the statewide name recognition. I can win.
It'll be interesting to see what Dorow’s pitch is going to be. There’s a news conference later today-outside of the Waukesha County courthouse-in which she’ll announce her run and talk to the media...
And on the left-there are two liberal candidates who have already announced. More people could still join in....on either side of the aisle, of course.
The two liberal candidates are a Dane County circuit judge named Everett Mitchell and a Milwaukee County circuit judge Janet Protasiewicz, and both of them are well known as left wing-activist-judges.
Not just liberal leaning judges-but politically partisan-activist judges.
Mitchell presides over Dane county’s high risk drug court program and sees his mission as diverting adults with drug addictions facing criminal charges into treatment instead of prison...
And Protasiewicz is in Milwaukee County’s family court. I don’t know much about her, either, but she spent most of her career in the Milwaukee DA’s office under Chisholm and Mike McCann and that should tell you all you need to know. She previously worked for 26 years in a DA’s office that is nationally famous for going soft on criminals.
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