Wisconsin’s recent Supreme Court election, with its $100 million in record spending and wall-to-wall attack ads, spotlighted how politicized the state’s “nonpartisan” high court has become.

To understand how we got here, consider the rise and fall of former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has agreed to surrender his law license for behavior unbecoming of a lawyer, let alone a former top judge.

Last November’s 10-count complaint filed by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, an arm of the very court he served on, is not the first time Gableman, 58, has been accused of an ethical lapse. But until now he has avoided public consequences. One example of Gableman’s actions, not previously reported, shows how closely intertwined an officially nonpartisan justice became with party politics.

Wisconsin Watch has learned that while a justice, Gableman attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland — in possible violation of judicial rules prohibiting attendance at party conventions — and while there, he appeared intoxicated and was escorted out of the convention hall after causing disturbances, according to two Wisconsin Republicans in attendance and a third briefed on the incident shortly after it happened.

Former longtime state GOP leader Steve King recalled then-U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy telling him that Gableman “has a problem and we need to get him back to his hotel.”

Gableman had established a solid legal career, having served in district attorney offices and courtrooms across the state. He made history winning election to the Supreme Court — the first candidate in four decades to defeat an incumbent justice.

But after the GOP convention in Cleveland, his career entered a downward spiral. His Republican support waned, and he decided not to run for a second 10-year term and disappeared from public life.

Then in 2021, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired Gableman as a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Wisconsin.

At the time, it was not publicly disclosed that Gableman had worked a $170,000 executive branch job in the final year of Trump’s first administration.

According to newly obtained public records, Gableman’s compensation for the failed election probe was more than twice what was budgeted for his role.

The entire investigation cost taxpayers nearly $2.8 million, a new figure that includes a $432,000 open records lawsuit settlement reached earlier this month. The total is more than four times the $676,000 that was budgeted for the project.

Gableman’s career — from his first major courtroom job in 1999, to the pivotal 2008 Supreme Court election, to perpetuating Trump’s debunked election conspiracies — is a case study in what can happen when partisanship entangles the government branch most shielded from political volatility.

‘Always the adult in the room’

Raised in Waukesha County as the youngest of five in a middle-class family, Gableman stood out for doing right, his cousin David Gableman told Wisconsin Watch. The former justice, through his cousin, declined to be interviewed and didn’t respond to other interview requests.

While growing up, “he was always the adult in the room,” David Gableman said. “Always the serious one, very focused. … He always wanted to have an impact, he always wanted to make a difference in life.”

Yearbook photo of Michael Gableman — Ripon senior yearbook photo, 1988. (Courtesy of the Ripon Crimson)

A multiyear class president at New Berlin West High School, Gableman earned a bachelor’s degree in history and education from Ripon College. At Ripon, he was sports editor of the yearbook and a member of Beta Sigma Pi.

In earning his law degree in 1993 from the Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, Gableman made the dean’s honor roll.

Gableman, who never married and has no children, was aided in his career rise by Republican Party connections and a willingness to move to rural areas.

After working as a county government attorney and prosecutor in Langlade, Forest and Marathon counties in northern Wisconsin, in 1999 Gableman was appointed by GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson as district attorney in far-northwestern Ashland County.

Looking back, Thompson doesn’t see it as odd that he didn’t choose a local attorney, though he acknowledged he doesn’t recall even interviewing Gableman.

“I’m sure that Michael Gableman’s name came forward as an individual, that he was a Republican and that he was a good lawyer,” Thompson told Wisconsin Watch.

Gableman later described himself as an independent when Thompson appointed him. His first recorded campaign contribution in a Wisconsin election was to a Democrat — $500 in 1998 to then-state Assembly Rep. Greg Huber, who represented Marathon County.

Ashland County was something of a GOP launching pad at the time. Gableman was preceded as district attorney by J.B. Van Hollen, who went on to become Wisconsin’s attorney general, and succeeded by Duffy, now Trump’s transportation secretary. Van Hollen and Duffy also had been tapped for the job from outside the county.

Another GOP connection sets up a Supreme Court run

Running unopposed, Gableman was elected Ashland County district attorney as a Republican in 2000. District attorneys, unlike judges, can run with a partisan affiliation.

By then, Gableman chaired the county Republican Party. In 2002, he cut short his term as district attorney to take an administrative law judge position 260 miles away in Appleton under Thompson’s successor, GOP Gov. Scott McCallum.

The low-profile, largely bureaucratic position handles disputes within government agencies. But it gave Gableman the title of judge.

Just two months later, McCallum appointed Gableman to a vacant circuit court judgeship nearly 300 miles away in Burnett County.

Scott McCallum is seen in the 2002 Wisconsin gubernatorial debate, broadcast by C-SPAN.

It played out in a partisan way.

Gableman had not applied for the Burnett County judgeship. Yet McCallum chose him over two local applicants recommended by McCallum’s advisory committee for judicial appointments.

Gableman contributed $2,500 to McCallum’s campaign in the months before the appointment and headed up some McCallum fundraising events.

Asked why he picked Gableman, McCallum told Wisconsin Watch he knew Gableman “as a supporter of mine” and considered him a good attorney and a hard worker.

“It came down to it, the other two were Democrats, I appointed Gableman,” he said.

It’s true that one of the finalists, then-Burnett County district attorney Ken Kutz, was a Democrat. But the other, Mark Biller, then district attorney in neighboring Polk County, was a Republican. McCallum didn’t respond to requests to clarify his recollection of Kutz and Biller.

McCallum made it clear when interviewing Kutz that the selection process was decidedly partisan.

“The first question was, ‘Why the hell should I appoint a Democrat for judge in Burnett County?’” Kutz recalled to Wisconsin Watch.

Biller was in the right party, but he had lost his run for Polk County judge months earlier.

He said McCallum chose Gableman because McCallum was “looking for someone who could use that job for higher office and advance party goals.”

“He went out there and just campaigned to death,” Kutz recalled of Gableman’s run for Burnett County judge several months after being chosen by McCallum. “The guy is a politician like nobody’s business.”

Nasty ads taint 2008 race

Gableman “ran a real tight courtroom” and performed well as a Burnett County judge, said Kutz, who succeeded Gableman after Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle appointed him to the bench.

Gableman helped create the county’s Drug and Alcohol Court, one of the first in Wisconsin, its Restorative Justice Program that helps divert offenders from jail, and inmate and juvenile justice community service programs.

But in deciding to run for Supreme Court in 2008, he was virtually unknown outside of GOP circles. Republicans speaking on condition of anonymity said Gableman emerged as the candidate after better-known conservatives opted not to challenge the incumbent Justice Louis Butler.

Butler, a former Milwaukee County judge and the state’s first African American justice, had been appointed in 2004 by Doyle. Both he and Gableman were running statewide for the first time.

Gableman’s campaign, led by former state Republican Party executive director Darrin Schmitz, cast Gableman as a law-and-order candidate, drawing a contrast with Butler, who previously had worked as a public defender. In attack ads, Gableman’s supporters nicknamed Butler “loophole Louie” — suggesting Butler would use legal loopholes to help criminal defendants.

Gableman stayed on message, said David Gableman, who accompanied his cousin on many campaign trips. “It didn’t matter what the question was,” Gableman would always quickly pivot to how many sheriffs had endorsed him, his cousin said.

Michael Gableman in black robe stands next to two law enforcement officers and a truck. — Screen grab from Michael Gableman’s promotional video for his Supreme Court run. (From YouTube channel @gableman1)

He also received heavy backing from business interests, especially Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which wanted a reliable conservative to flip what they viewed as an activist Supreme Court.

The court had issued a series of controversial rulings, including one finding that individual manufacturers could be held liable for a child’s lead paint injuries, even without proof they were responsible.

WMC and other conservative groups spent $2.75 million backing Gableman, nearly seven times what his own campaign spent, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign estimated.

Louis Butler (Wisconsin Supreme Court file photo)

At the time, the $6 million spent on the race — a fraction of the $100 million spent in the 2025 Supreme Court contest — passed the previous campaign spending record for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. That record had been set the previous year and was itself four times higher than the previous spending record.

Gableman defeated Butler by nearly 3 points, becoming the state’s first candidate to unseat an incumbent justice since 1967.

In his victory speech, Gableman declared a triumph for “judicial conservatism.”

William Bablitch, a former Supreme Court justice, said at the time: “Right now, the impression of the people of the state is justice is for sale, and some are going to get a fairer shake than others.”

Surviving accusations of misconduct

In what would become a pattern, Gableman was accused of two ethical lapses during and soon after the 2008 campaign.

Liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now alleged Gableman had made campaign fundraising calls for McCallum from his taxpayer-funded Ashland County district attorney’s office in 2002. One Wisconsin Now produced records showing 55 calls had been made from Gableman’s office and from his government-issued cellphone to McCallum fundraisers and donors, McCallum’s campaign office and others.

One Wisconsin Now requested investigations, but several authorities, including Van Hollen, Duffy, the Government Accountability Board and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, refused.

The calls “sent the message that he was political,” said Sachin Chheda, who ran Butler’s campaign. “It also sent the message that he was willing to push the envelope.”

Gableman also faced a judicial oversight investigation for a misleading campaign ad he approved three weeks before the election.

The ad falsely implied that, as a public defender, Butler used a loophole to free imprisoned rapist Reuben Lee Mitchell, who later molested a child. In fact, Butler’s representation didn’t result in a reduced punishment and Mitchell committed the later crime only after serving his prison sentence.

“It just shows he was willing to do anything,” Scot Ross, former head of One Wisconsin Now, said of Gableman.

David Gableman noted there were harsh attack ads on both sides, recalling that another relative didn’t vote for his cousin after ads accused him of giving light sentences to sex offenders.

Michael Gableman smiles and raises hand — Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman acknowledges applause after taking the oath of office in a ceremony at the Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 24, 2008. Gableman was sworn in by former Justice Donald Steinmetz. (Craig Schreiner / Wisconsin State Journal)

In October 2008, just two months after Gableman was sworn in, the state Judicial Commission filed a complaint against him, alleging his ad violated the state judicial code of conduct.

The commission dropped the case in 2010 after the Supreme Court deadlocked 3-3 on what to do about the complaint. Gableman didn’t participate. The other three conservative justices said that while the ad was “distasteful,” its statements were “objectively true” and protected by the First Amendment.

Reliable conservative falls out of favor with his party

Gableman’s tenure on the Supreme Court was marked by controversy.

When Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Justice David Prosser of putting his hands around her neck during an argument — an incident witnessed by four justices — Gableman’s account was the only outlier, characterizing the 5-foot-3 Walsh Bradley as looming over the 5-foot-9 Prosser, according to a sheriff’s report.

Gableman also claimed to sheriff’s investigators that Walsh Bradley had smacked him on the back of the head in the presence of their colleagues for calling Shirley Abrahamson, then the chief justice, by her first name. No other justice corroborated his story.

Ethics complaints were filed with two state agencies over Gableman’s acceptance of two years of free legal services, likely worth tens of thousands of dollars, in the case filed against him over the Butler ad. As a justice, Gableman did not recuse himself from cases argued by Michael Best & Friedrich, the law firm that provided his free legal aid. He ruled in favor of the firm’s clients five times, more than any other justice during his tenure on the court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. No action was taken against him from those complaints.

Michael Gableman speaks at right next to David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley. — Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman speaks during a court hearing Sept. 17, 2015, at the Grant County Courthouse in Lancaster, Wis. Also pictured are Justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley. (Jessica Reilly / Telegraph Herald)

A strong conservative on the court, Gableman wrote the court’s 5-2 opinion upholding Act 10, the 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions. He also wrote the 4-2 decision that ended what was known as the John Doe II criminal investigation into Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s coordination with outside groups during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections that Act 10 triggered.

Then Cleveland happened.

Attending the Republican National Convention was problematic for a sitting justice. The state Judicial Code of Conduct directs judges to “avoid partisan activity” and says they may not “participate” in political party conventions. But what’s labeled as a comment on the rule says judges “may attend public events, even those sponsored by political parties or candidates, so long as the attendance does not constitute the kind of partisan activity prohibited by this rule.” In recent years, Wisconsin candidates for the Supreme Court and a justice-elect have spoken at state Democratic and Republican party conventions.

One Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he witnessed Gableman being “loud and obnoxious” at the convention. Gableman appeared to be intoxicated before other attendees escorted him out of the convention hall and back to his hotel, the Republican source said.

That source and another Republican, who was not in attendance, said they were told by party colleagues that Gableman belligerently insulted Janesville U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, then speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in a hospitality suite, before Duffy became involved and whisked him away.

Spokespersons for Duffy and Ryan did not return messages seeking comment.

David Gableman said he drove to the convention with his cousin, though they didn’t attend all of the same events together. He said he wasn’t aware of any incidents.

The Republicans who declined to be identified said the incident added to concerns about whether Gableman would be the best candidate to back in 2018. In June 2017, Gableman, then only 50, announced he would not run for a second term.

In 2020, Gableman was hired by the federal Office of Personnel Management at a salary of $170,800 putting him among the highest-paid 10% of employees in the agency. Gableman was involved in implementing a Trump executive order to curb diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for federal employees, a precursor to what would happen this year with Trump’s second administration.

2020 election probe becomes new focus

When Trump lost the 2020 election and fought the result in court with baseless claims of voter fraud, Gableman, no longer working in government, became a lieutenant in Trump’s election fraud-fighting army.

Gableman, like Trump, “has always been kind of anti-establishment,” believes “the swamp” is deep and that politicians aren’t accountable, David Gableman said. “He’s been loyal to Trump not because he’s a blind soldier, but because he has similar political beliefs.”

Defending Trump also allowed Gableman to return to the public spotlight.

Michael Gableman speaks at podium — Michael Gableman, formerly a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, speaks at a rally for President Donald Trump at American Serb Hall in Milwaukee on Nov. 7, 2020, after Joe Biden had won a bitterly fought contest for president over Trump. (Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY NETWORK)

Four days after Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, Gableman suggested at a pro-Trump rally in Milwaukee that the election had been stolen.

In June 2021, Trump accused Vos, the state’s Assembly speaker, and other Wisconsin GOP leaders of “working hard to cover up election corruption.”

The next day, Vos announced at the state Republican Party convention that he had retained Gableman to investigate the 2020 election.

The move took pressure off Vos and other Wisconsin Republicans from Trump’s base. They were placating Trump by choosing a Trump-aligned former Supreme Court justice to lead the investigation.

Vos miscalculated.

It wasn’t widely known at the time that Gableman had been working for Trump’s administration in 2020. Asked if he knew, when hiring Gableman, that the former justice had been working for Trump, Vos said he didn’t think so.

Gableman began his first months of election investigation work at the New Berlin Public Library because he didn’t own a computer.

It didn’t go well. Gableman acknowledged having little understanding of how elections work. He also:

Tried to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay for refusing to submit to depositions, which he had no authority to do.
Endorsed various false claims about lawmakers’ power to decertify Biden’s election victory, which the New York Times reported had lended “credence to the conspiracy theories.”
Deleted records in violation of state regulations, leading Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn to say Gableman appeared to have “gone rogue” and “run amok” by refusing to comply with the state’s open records law.

His work did please one fan, however.

In April 2022, Gableman attended a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where Trump praised him before an audience: “Michael, you’ve been unbelievable,” The Washington Post reported.

His efforts drew derision from Wisconsin legal authorities and even the party leader who hired him.

In June 2022, a year into the election investigation, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington asked the Office of Lawyer Regulation in a court order to discipline Gableman. Remington found Gableman in contempt of court and fined him $2,000 per day for refusing Remington’s order to produce documents. Gableman also displayed “sneering” and mocking behavior in court, Remington wrote, and “destroyed any sense of decorum and irreparably damaged the public’s perception of the judicial process.”

Vos fired Gableman two months later, in August 2022, calling him an “embarrassment.”

After the firing, Gableman’s name was removed from his law school’s list of notable alumni.

Gableman was paid $117,000, more than double the $55,000 that had been budgeted, according to a previously unreported document Wisconsin Watch obtained from the Assembly clerk.

“He paid no attention to detail, he delegated almost all the work to somebody else and very poor follow-through,” Vos told Wisconsin Watch. “It seemed like Mike Gableman was more concerned about the money he was earning as opposed to finding the truth.”

Reviews by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and The Associated Press found no evidence of uncounted, miscounted or fraudulent votes that would have had any bearing in Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

Election probe leads to lawyer regulation complaint

Gableman’s work was supposed to conclude within a few months. Ultimately, the nearly 14-month probe cost taxpayers $2.77 million, including $1.82 million for outside lawyers. Earlier this month, the state agreed to pay $431,843 in legal fees to American Oversight, a group that sued over destruction of records related to the investigation.

Less than a month after being fired, Gableman told a gathering of Outagamie County Republicans: “Our comfort is holding us back from taking the action that’s necessary. … It’s that very comfort that is keeping us from what our Founders knew to be the only way to keep an honest government, which is revolution.”

Even while under investigation for lawyer misconduct, he continued to advance his election conspiracies to sympathetic audiences.

Michael Gableman and others seated at a meeting — Michael Gableman is photographed at a Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection hearing about the nomination of Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe on Aug. 29, 2023, in the Capitol in Madison, Wis. Gableman previously acted as special counsel to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to investigate the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Wisconsin. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)

The Wolf River Area Patriots promoted its January meeting by touting a Gableman speech on the importance of electing conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel to the state Supreme Court.

About 50 people turned out in tiny New London, two hours northwest of Milwaukee. The meeting was open to the public. Gableman spoke in his resonant baritone for more than an hour, stoking fear and spreading unproven theories about casting votes in the names of overseas military service people or the deceased, and saying Wisconsin elections “are only as secure as the worst criminally minded fraudster wants them to be.”

Gableman said little about Schimel, who went on to lose the April 1 election, other than that he was superior to eventual winner Susan Crawford. He called Crawford “a particularly nasty piece of work.”

At more than $100 million, the Schimel-Crawford race set a national record for spending on a state supreme court contest and featured droves of misleading attack ads that have become common since Gableman’s 2008 campaign.

The state Office of Lawyer Regulation’s case against Gableman, which includes allegations raised in a 100-page complaint from the Law Forward law firm in March 2023, said he violated 10 counts of Supreme Court rules of professional conduct for attorneys. He is accused of making false statements about a judge, an opposing attorney and two mayors; making false statements to the Office of Lawyer Regulation; disobeying a court order; and violating the state open records law and confidentiality rules.

Gableman had gone from a top jurist sworn to uphold the constitution to a political player accused of lying in court and breaking laws.

He initially denied the charges, which could have led to the permanent loss of his law license.

But on April 7, he capitulated.

In the settlement filing: “Gableman hereby stipulates that he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of misconduct … and agrees that the allegations of the complaint provide an adequate factual basis for a determination of SCR (Supreme Court Rules) violations as alleged in each of the ten counts of the complaint.”

He agreed with this admission to losing his license to practice law for three years.

The proposed settlement must be approved by two more authorities to become official:

A lawyer serving as referee in the case.

And the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Some research for this article was provided by the nonprofit Sunlight Research Center, which assists newsrooms with investigative reporting.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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