We'll be talking about the upcoming crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Brad
Schimmel and Susan Crawford.
To discuss this one, I'm joined by Dan Schaefer, the founder of the prize-winning recombobulation
area and the political editor here at Civic Media, Dan Schaefer, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me, Matt.
Happy to be here.
We've got another big election here in Wisconsin on April 1st.
It seems like we've had one huge election after another non-stop since 2010, doesn't it?
We don't get a whole lot of plays off here in Wisconsin, Dewey.
It's just one after the next when it comes to these everything on the line elections.
Yeah, we don't really get any kind of break here, Dewey.
No, no breaks in sight and I know a lot of people were exhausted after the Trump debacle
in November, but I'm hoping people are recovering, gathering their strife, getting their resistance
and spirit of resistance back up because we need it not only against Trump and Elon Musk,
but we need it right here in Wisconsin to see what kind of state we're going to have going
forward.
So, let's take a look at the two candidates.
I don't know so much about Susan Crawford.
I know more about Brad Schimmel, but why don't you tell me who is Brad Schimmel?
Well, Brad Schimmel obviously is the former attorney general in the state of Wisconsin,
and he has been on the court in Waukeshaw County for the past number of years,
and he has been running in this race for Wisconsin Supreme Court for 16 months now.
He's launched his campaign for the 2025 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court,
even before Eric Houghley launched his campaign for Senate in 2024.
It's got to be an indoor record, isn't it?
I mean, it's amazing.
You know, I first came across Schimmel when even before he was attorney general in the Waukeshaw
County DA, and he gave a sweetheart deal to Scott Jensen, the disgraced former Republican
assembly leader who was initially convicted of felonies during the caucus scandal in the state
capital when he and his Democratic counterpart were raising money illegally in the capital for
campaigns, but he was convicted originally on a couple felonies in Dane County, and then on
a technicality, it got tossed out, so it was retried for some bizarre reason.
Down in Waukeshaw, his politicians get this to establish where they're going to be tried.
And of course, Waukeshaw's Republican territory.
Schimmel was the DA, and Schimmel let him off with just a misdemeanor, which was a terrible
injustice, it seemed to me, but that told me that Brad Schimmel was a Republican hack
through and through, and he's proved that in every position he sells, it seems to me.
Yeah, I mean, he's been running a very partisan campaign even though he is saying that he wants
to come to the court as an unbiased observer, which if you've paid any attention to Schimmel's
background at all in the race, and as in his time as Attorney General, he's a very Republican
partisan guy, and that really seems like the type of campaign that he's been running for
State Supreme Court here as well. Well, you mentioned his role as AG Under Walker, part of the
Walker, wrecking crew, as I call it. In that position, he did a couple things, at least that I know
of. You may know of more. I mean, he defended the gerrymandered maps, for instance. He opposed
expanding women's reproductive rights and wanted to confine them, and he joined other Republican
Attorney generals across the country and trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Those
were the things that stuck out to me. Are there any other ones that stuck out to you?
Yeah, he also took some strange positions when it came to dealing with kind of the legal side
of these opioid settlements that have been happening. I think that really kind of became a major
issue in the latter part of the 2010s when he was the Attorney General, and there was kind of an
issue with that. I believe receiving donations from, I don't know if it was the Sackler family
specifically or a contribution from a super packet related to the pharmaceutical company that
they own Purdue Pharma, but they donated quite a bit to at least the Republican Attorney General's
Association. I don't remember if it was directly to Shimmel, but that seems like a major issue,
too. Opioids are an issue that has touched a lot of people in the state of Wisconsin and the fact
that if nothing else kind of slow-walking his approach to addressing those settlements seems
like a bit of a problem. So did we get cheated out of some of that money as a result? What happened
there? You know, that I'm not sure because I think the timing of it meant that Josh Cole became
Attorney General, but that was also around the same time that with the lame duck lob that they
were removing certain, certain rights that, or responsibilities that Cole had as AG, so I don't
remember where exactly that one left off. The other thing that struck me was his bragging about
the voter ID law, the voter ID law passed under Walker when he was Attorney General, when Shimmel
was Attorney General, and then he was on record with, I think, was Vicki McKenna saying,
how many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Ron Johnson was going to win re-election,
or Trump was going to win in Wisconsin the first time, if we didn't have voter ID? I mean,
that, to me, is just a concession about the political calculus and the really callous one.
Behind passing voter ID, which Todd Alba here at Civic Media has been talking about a lot,
that it was designed to prevent people from voting, and Republican Senators Todd was there,
in the cloakroom when they were giddy to use Todd's words about repressing, suppressing the vote,
and here we have Shimmel bragging about it. That does not strike me as the kind of person you
want in the court, doesn't? No, certainly not. You know, so I was last week, Shimmel had an event
in Milwaukee. They're both of the candidates for State Supreme Court are, you know, just having
these get to know you type events at the Market University Law School hosted by Derek Mosley.
So last week on February 18th, I joined, I sat in on the one at Marquette with Brad Shimmel,
and he, you know, he kind of like what they did in this was, it was a lot of like kind of like
biographical talk, and talking through like what his history was as a DA and as Attorney General,
and all these different types of things. And he was talking about like the type of approach
that he would want to bring to the bench and just like it was, you know, one of those questions,
like what's one word that would describe the approach he would bring to the bench? And he said
objectivity. Not that anybody can be objective, but much less someone with his history and
background. Right. Exactly. So given the campaign that he's been running, you know, given the,
given just his record, he's got a long record as a partisan politician and as somebody who
clearly makes a lot of decisions with that in mind, you know, it was a comment that it just
seems very paradoxical from where he's coming from and talking about how objectivity is being
the most important thing, but you know, you just take any look at this guy and his record and his
campaign, and it just certainly does not seem like objectivity is paramount for him at all.
I mean, on the abortion issue, he was out there supporting that 1849 law that bans abortion
in Wisconsin, or might be interpreted as banning abortion in Wisconsin, depending on how the judges
decide. I mean, there was a Dink County judge who said it doesn't ban abortion, but that's going
to be up at the Wisconsin Supreme Court whoever wins this one, right? So he or Susan Crawford will
probably be deciding that or helping to decide that one. Yeah, and if not this case, another one,
right? So these, because these, because these terms are 10 years, the selection is for a 10-year
term on the court, if it's not for this race or not for this case on the eight, the legality of
that 1849 abortion law and some of the other laws that have been passed since, you know, if not
that one, you know, it would be important to have somebody on the court for the next 10 years,
who's going to be ruling on these issues in a way that reflects kind of where Wisconsinites are,
because I think a lot of the action that Brad Schimmel took as a Republican Attorney General,
you know, a decade ago certainly doesn't match, certainly probably didn't match the electorate
at the time and certainly doesn't now. You know, you look at the polling and where a lot of
Wisconsinites are on the issue of abortion. This is one that, you know, liberals and Democrats
have had a pretty distinct advantage on, especially since Roe was overturned. And so, you know,
given, given Wisconsin's, you know, kind of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's role in these cases
going forward, I think that's going to be a very important issue for voters to look at in this
campaign. And the race is crucial because right now there is a four to three liberal majority on
the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the only seven justices, not nine, like there is in Washington,
seven here in Wisconsin. And Ann Walsh Bradley, one of the great justices of the Wisconsin
Supreme Court of liberal with a tremendous intellect and grace decided not to run for re-election.
So there is a liberal seat, if you will, on the court up. And the balance of the court is
just hanging by a threat. So if Susan Crawford loses to Brad Chimble, Republicans will then have
a majority on the court. So that's why right now it's such an important one. Let's talk a little
bit about Susan Crawford who, you know, I just don't know that much about, tell me about her.
Yeah, so Susan Crawford, you know, she kind of follows in the, you know, follows a path that we've
seen for a lot of, a lot of these liberal candidates running for Wisconsin Supreme Court, you know,
whether it's somebody from some Dane County or Milwaukee County, you know, it's a very, she
like Janet Proto-Savitz or Rebecca Dalett or Jill Krofsky before her, very accomplished, very,
you know, a strong record and resume going into these races and, you know, making the jump from
Dane County Circuit Court to the run for Wisconsin Supreme Court is pretty similar to what Jill
Krofsky did in 2020. And so, you know, I think she has worked in a number of different roles.
Over her career, she was chief legal counsel to Governor Jim Doyle. She worked in the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Corrections. She served as an assistant attorney
general in both in the Department of Justices in both Iowa and Wisconsin. And she, like,
Shimmel has been campaigning for this for quite some time. She launched her campaign, not quite as
early as Shimmel did, but she launched her campaign in June of 2024. In the field cleared pretty
quickly for, there was some talk at the beginning that a former assembly person and I believe a
pellet court judge Chris Taylor was going to contest for that, you know, why she backed out and
and gave Susan Crawford a free run. That I'm not sure. But, you know, I think we've seen this in
the past where I think, you know, that might want, the certain candidates might want to avoid
some sort of a contentious primary knowing what kind of what is going to be on the line for
for the general election. And, you know, as we're recording this, the primary was last week.
And so on both sides of the aisle, for I think there was also some talk of some other potential
candidates getting in the conservative side as well. But this, you know, ended up not having a
primary and ended up just is going to be Crawford versus Shimmel. So, you know, I think a lot of
people are making comparisons to the race from two years ago, one by Janet Prosewitz in the 2023
race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, you know, one of the big factors that's going to be different from
that is that there was not a there is not a primary this year. There was a primary. There were four
candidates that were whittled down to two in that primary two years ago, but, but such is not the
case this year. You know, I'm usually the view that primaries are a good thing that it gives the
candidates a batting practice for the finals for the runoff. And not having primary sometimes is
it proves to be a disadvantage. Or when when people bow out as they did in the Mandela Barnes race
at the end, I'm not sure that served him well or us well. But I see both sides of that. Where do you
come down on this question? Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think it is better to have some sort of
primary to let the to let the voters decide, right? And I think we saw that we saw that a couple
of years ago. I mean, when when Janet Prosewitz, you know, won the primary very convincingly,
even though there was, you know, another liberal candidate in that race, you know,
perhaps that sharpened her focus over the course of the campaign. You know, I remember being there
at this forum or that this kind of debate style event in Madison, where it was, you know,
Janet Prosewitz and Everett Mitchell were the two liberal candidates and Daniel Kelly and
Jennifer Doro as the two conservative candidates. And I think that at the time, it seemed like
Jennifer Doro was was on the ascent, you know, given the the high profile ruling that she had in
the Waukesha, the Waukesha case that she ruled on that was that was high profile news with
Daryl Brooks, Brooks driving into the Waukesha Christmas parade. And, you know, her ruling on that,
but then when she got to that forum, you know, I was at that forum and she really flopped
in that venue and it really seemed like, you know, they were coordinating her before she got to that
forum and then she was just kind of like reading these answers out of a binder and just did not seem
ready and equipped for that type of race. And then I think the the tenor of it shifted further
for the conservatives to, you know, towards Daniel Kelly, who wasn't a great candidate either.
Who was not a great candidate? Yeah, he was, you know, and he now has the distinction of losing
in Wisconsin a 50-50 state. He's lost by double digit margins for Wisconsin for full terms on the
Wisconsin Supreme Court twice. So, you know, say what you will about Brexit, not being a great candidate,
and I don't think he is a great candidate, but he's a better one than Daniel Kelly. Not a high
bar to clear exactly, but he's a better candidate than Daniel Kelly. Yeah, and that's something people
should be aware of. It's not going to be a cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination.
The issues that are going to be before the court that are so important coming up, we touched on
the abortion issue. There are a bunch of other ones. Which ones come to mind for you?
Yeah, redistricting seems like it's going to be a huge one here. You know, Ben Wickler was on one
of our shows on Civic Media last week talking about how Republican groups are already fundraising
on trying to rejerrymander Wisconsin's state legislative maps. There's a lot of talk about,
you know, how this race would factor into legal challenges for the congressional maps in addition
to the state legislative ones that were struck down before, you know, late in 2023. So, it's going to
be, I think that is going to be a huge part of it. Act 10, you know, that case, we'll see where
that goes. There's, you know, it's always even if there is a ruling, it seems like there's going
to be an inevitable appeal or something or whatever. I know some Republicans are saying Susan Crawford,
if she gets it, should recuse on act 10 because she was at the dual administration opposing,
or as an attorney opposing act 10 or something. I don't know if that would happen, but I know they're
trying to make an issue with that. Yeah, and they tried to do that with proto-sewets too, and she
just said that she would not be recusing in that case. So, it's going to be interesting to see where
where exactly that one goes, but I think it's, you know, zooming out, I think there are a number of
other issues like, you know, there's some separation of powers, questions that have been raised
before the court and about what exactly the legislature can and can't, you know, consolidate certain
powers within certain committees or whatever it might be. And again, we talk about this as being,
you know, some of the flashpoint issues that are in the news right now, but, you know, whether it's
act 10 or redistricting or abortion, like those might be what we're looking at as top issues right
now in 2025, but again, this is for a 10-year term, and this is for somebody who's going to be on
the court until 2035. So, it's hard to really speculate about what issues are going to be before
the court on a full 10-year term as well. Yeah, because the Wisconsin Supreme Court governs
everything here in Wisconsin, you know, our rights, you know, the funding for public schools and
school choice that had made come before, you know, big dairy farms, you know, KFOs that had made
come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, you never know, but it really affects us on a day-to-day
of the decisions that are made. And then you're making another argument that I even thought about
really, I saw you write at the Reconvobulation Area, and I think I heard you talking with
Jane Madden there about this, that there's this question of who's going to hold the majority on
the Wisconsin Supreme Court for referring the 2028 elections. So, talk to me about that.
Yeah, so, you know, I feel like the 2023 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court was kind of this
culmination of a year's long project for liberals to win control of the court. And so, I think,
you know, starting in 2018 when Rebecca Dallet won that race that kind of flipped one seat,
and then Jill Karofsky in 2020, and then Janet Proto say it's in 2023, that was kind of a culmination
of this year's long effort to win control of the court. Now, it's kind of a different dynamic,
right? Even though it's just two years later, another everything on the line race. But this year
begins a run of six years in a row where we will have a race for Wisconsin Supreme Court on the
spring election ballot. That's not only that's just too exhausting to even contemplate. It is too
exhausting to contemplate, but here's why this race is particularly important so that we don't have
an everything on the line race for next year or in 2027. So, if Crawford wins this year,
it would remain a four three liberal majority. And that would be the case for pretty much until
2028, until Rebecca Dallet's 10-year term is up in 2028. So, I think why is it that's because
that's because the the next couple races are for right wing or Republican judges or
Republican leaning justices, correct? That's right. So, Rebecca Bradley is up in 2026.
The bad Bradley. Rebecca Bradley is up in 2026 and then, and that's Eglier is up in 2027.
So, both, both part of the the court's conservative wing, you know, I think Bradley is probably the
most conservative most right wing member of the court right now. And so, let's, if Shimmel wins
this year, then it would kind of ping pong back to yet another everything on the line, you know,
the this seat determines the majority next year with Bradley. It could be another similar dynamic
in 2027. But what I'm saying is that if Crawford wins now, you're going to have a liberal majority
on the court on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2028. And I think the reason why
that seems especially important is because of what we've seen after the of the last of the first
month and change of the Trump administration of Donald Trump's return to office and what
Elon Musk and Doge and whatever else is rampaging through the federal government. I think it's
going to be really important for the next four years to have some reliable checks and balances
and that starts at the state level. And I think, you know, we're starting to see, you know,
some of the effects and of these layoffs and these purges and these changes and whatever.
But as we go forward for the next few years, I think it would be really important. I think checks
and balances from the court and whether, you know, I think JD Vance talked about this a little
bit, whether they're going to listen to those courts, you know, I think is a really important
question that we're all going to be asking in the political universe for the next four years.
So if you want to make sure that you're not in another, you know, do-or-die election
a year from now in Wisconsin when Rebecca Bradley is up or the following year, and that's
eaglers up, I think that is a really important part of the calculation that people need to have
in mind for this year's race, because I think, you know, this, if Crawford wins, again,
you're going to have a liberal majority on the court until at least 2028. And, you know,
if Rebecca Dalat runs for another term, that could even-that could extend you in further,
because I think it's Hagridorn that's going to be up in 29. So, you know, again, this is six
years in a row of Wisconsin Supreme Court races. We want to avoid these everything on the line,
you know, all these disgusting ads that we're seeing on the airwaves every five seconds.
I think people want to avoid those types of campaigns and just get back to just kind of a more,
you know, less intense races for these for these roles.
You've also alluded, Dan Schaefer, to kind of a nightmare scenario, if Republican
leading justices have the majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, that they might ask three of them
wanted to do in 2020, throw out tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of votes and just basically
hand pick who won the Wisconsin presidential election. Right. Yeah, let's not forget that this
was the closest state court in the country to siding with any of the Trump campaigns challenges,
to the 2020 election. And it was, if not for Brian Hagridorn, you know, siding with the three
liberal justices in that ruling, we could have been headed towards some real constitutional crisis
territory with what was happening in the state of Wisconsin at the time, you know, with those
ridiculous, nonsensical challenges to our votes, to people's votes in the 2020 election. And so,
I, it is another reminder that, you know, that this is, this is going to be a really important race,
not only for, you know, what these justices, what might be ruling on when it applies to
just issues happening in the state of Wisconsin, but this is something that really has far
reaching impact on the whole nation when it comes to, you know, these, these elections going
forward. So, you know, I think two years ago, some of the things that Daniel Kelly was saying,
really called into question what, whether he would, where he would rule on these types of election
challenges or how he might have ruled, had he defeated Kurovsky in 2020 and remained in that
in that role that he was appointed to by Scott Walker in 2016 as a member of the Wisconsin
Supreme Court. So, you know, the voters decided and they, you know, tossed Daniel Kelly out of
office at that point. And now we still have, we still have a democracy in the state of Wisconsin,
in no small part, because of that. And so, you know, that's, that's another factor looking forward
for future elections. Do you trust Brad Chimble to say that your vote's going to count when he's
out there on right wing talk radio talking about how, you know, the January six writers didn't
get a fair shake or I forget exactly the phrasing that he used on that, but he was kind of siding with
those those January six writers in a certain sense in the comments that he was making there.
And obviously with the pardons that Donald Trump issued on day one or two or whatever it was on
that, you know, these are all important factors to consider. Factors for all of us as voters to
consider on April 1st, and if you're voting earlier by absentee, you can vote a couple weeks before
that. But turnout is going to be key. And I'm wondering what's your sense on the progressive
democratic side. I know there's this exhaustion and futility right after the election of Donald
Trump, but this I have a theory that this will be the first time that voters who don't like Trump
and don't like Elon Musk and don't like what's going on to our government and the assault on our
democracy be the first time to to register their disgust in some meaningful way at the polls and
that that may galvanize the voters for Susan Crawford. Do you think there's any sense to that?
I do. I think that, you know, this is really the first state level election test in the Trump
2.0 era, right? You know, and of course, that's going to happen in Wisconsin. Of course,
Wisconsin's going to be the place. The first place for this. I think there are some other,
you know, gubernatorial races and other states happening in the fall that people are taking a
look at that would be part of that as well. But at least for the next, you know, nine months or so,
the first nine months of the administration, I think the everything happening in the political
universe right now is going to be viewed through the prism of Donald Trump's scorched earth return
to office and everything that that Elon Musk is doing in the federal government just taking a
wrecking ball to agency after agency. And so, you know, given the fact that Elon Musk now is getting
directly involved in this race by putting up millions of dollars, I expect, you know, the total
to continue to rise in the coming weeks before the April 1st election. But I do wonder if this
race to a certain extent becomes a referendum on Trump 2.0 and on particularly on Elon Musk.
Because I think, you know, that has really, his role has really emerged as I think the main thing
that liberals and progressive voters are especially enraged and upset by and wanting to see,
you know, their democratic elected representatives and all that push back on this in any way
that they can. Well, here's an opportunity for voters to have their say. And I think, you're right.
I think there is some exhaustion on the left, some election fatigue, certainly just in general
in the state of Wisconsin, given, you know, how aggressively the candidates were campaigning here
throughout all of 2024. But, you know, a presidential electorate is different from a spring election
electorate. You're going to, you're not going to have the same turnout. And Donald Trump really
was successful in his campaign by helping turn out, by turning out what us in the political science
dark community would refer to as low propensity voters. He was really good at turning out those
low propensity voters. And it was a big reason why he won in the state of Wisconsin. He now has the
highest popular vote total in any presidential race in the state of Wisconsin in 2024.
And so I think, you know, Shimmel seems to be approaching this election saying like,
hey, if we get the same people who voted to elect Donald Trump in November out to vote for us
in April, we're going to win. But I think that misses a key component of the realignment we're
seeing at the national level at the state level. And it misses a key component of how different
these electorates are because a lot of there are a lot of voters who will only show up for
a presidential election. Or, you know, we even saw it last year. There were there are a lot of people
who voted for Donald Trump and didn't vote the rest of the ballot, whether it was Eric Houghney
or congressional candidates or state legislative candidates or whatever it might be. So, again,
it's, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out from it from like a turnout
perspective and all of that. But I think there are some, you know, presidential electorate versus
spring election electorate dynamics that are going to be really important ones as we look ahead
to this. I mean, I got to think that low propensity voters are going to be especially low propensity
voters when it comes to an election on April 1st that isn't a presidential election. And also,
on the other point you were making Dan Chaffer, Elon Musk is less popular than Donald Trump is.
And so, to the extent that it's a referendum on Elon Musk that will help Susan Crawford here,
I got to think. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, we've heard some, some comments from Ben
Wickler who is, who's back from his run for DNC chair and has been on the civic media airwebs
a couple of times over the last week. So, I'd encourage you to check those, check those out. But I
think that's going to be, it seems like that's going to be part of his approach to is, is running
against Elon, you know, we know the U lines are going to be putting a ton of money into this race as
they do for every statewide race in the state of Wisconsin. So, it's kind of running against the
billionaire class is a, is a comfortable place for Democrats to be. Let's talk about money in this
race. The last race for Wisconsin Supreme Court shattered all the records at more than 50 million
dollars. This one is supposed to even shatter that one, which was more than double the prior record.
I mean, and Elon Musk himself already in late February had thrown $2.5 million in change
to groups that are supporting Brad Schimmel. And the reason he can do that is because
Wisconsin election law got rewritten in 2015 by the Walker folks and the Republican legislature
because there used to be a $10,000 aggregate limit. You could give no more than $10,000 to any
candidate. If you gave $10,000 to Schimmel, you couldn't give a dime to the Republican party. You
couldn't give a dime to any of the outside electioneering groups. But the law was rewritten there in part
because of some US Supreme Court decisions. And because Republicans thought that they could make
on the big donors more than the Democrats could, Ben Wickler's proved him wrong in some
prior races. I'm not sure he's going to prove him wrong in this one. But what they did in 2015,
the Walker folks was double the amount that individuals could give to specific candidates.
And then just basically tore down the ceiling on what any rich person could give to the political
parties or to the outside groups and then said the outside groups and the political parties and
the campaign committees all could shuffle money between themselves. So right now there's no
limit on what a super rich person can give in Wisconsin and look at Elon Musk. I mean rather than
giving $20,000 to Brad Schimmel, I haven't checked to see whether he's done that. But he doesn't
need to do that because he can give more than a hundred times that to outside groups that are
saying the same thing that the Brad Schimmel campaign committee is doing. So that 2015 rewrite
just made a total mockery of our ability to limit the amount that the super wealthy can
throw around in our elections to tell us who to vote for and what laws should follow.
And so we need to do something about campaign finance reform. And I think this
election is going to demonstrate that more than anything. But I think you're right, this focus on
you know, like a Bernie Sanders campaign, you know, are you going to support the billionaire class
or are you going to support everyone having an equal voice in this state or in this country?
I would be clear. Yeah, go ahead too. I think it's important to recognize that both sides are
getting from pretty high dollar donations from some very wealthy folks. So the Wisconsin Democratic
Party got donations from George Soros, from JB Pritzker, from Reed Hoffman. I think Reed Hoffman,
the founder of LinkedIn. So I think that, you know, this is, Wickler has been successful at
exploiting that loophole created in 2015 by the Republicans. You know, they made this change.
And, you know, you're not going to have, if these are the, if this is the landscape we're going
to play on, and then that's what you got to play on. But I think, you know, in the long term,
in the bigger picture sense, like it just, it's just such an awful way to go about campaigning
to have tens of millions of dollars from all of these outside forces flooding the Wisconsin airwaves
for a couple months. And it's the type of ads that they bring to that's just like, you know,
it's, it's pretty vile stuff that you see in on the airwaves in these ads. And it's just,
we're just so inundated by it. You know, and I just think it really makes the process
really toxic. And I think I would hope that this is something that we, at some point, would
need to address and close some of those loopholes and address the role of money in politics,
because it's, it's just, it's not getting us anywhere. No, and the irony is in, in 2010,
2009, there was a law put on the books that would have public financing for Wisconsin Supreme
Court races. And it lasted all of one Wisconsin Supreme Court race and then Walker and the
Republican legislature threw it out. And so we're left just as you say with billionaires on both
sides splattering our screens with mud during the election time. And I would hope that if the
Democrats retain the governorship and get hold of both chambers of the legislature at some point
in the near future that they will revisit this campaign finance law and restore some semblance
of limits that the super rich folks have. And some semblance of disclosure and transparency,
because we should know, you know, who's spending what on, on which candidate and we also should
more fundamentally all have an equal say. We all should have an equal tug on the rope. And right now
it's the rich folks. And it shouldn't be a contest between, you know, 10 Democratic billionaires
and 10 Republican billionaires tugging on that rope. We all should have an equal tug and we just
don't. So that's the problem. But any last words, Dan Schaefer, the importance of this upcoming
Wisconsin Supreme Court race April 1st. Yeah, I think we've got, you know, some interesting
signposts to kind of look at over the course of the next. I think it's, what is it, five weeks from
today, as we recorded this on Monday the 24th that we're five weeks away from the election day on
this. So that means we're just over three weeks away from early voting starting. And then I think
March 12th, there's going to be a debate in this. There's going to be a head to head debate
between Shimmel and Crawford. The Marquette University is hosting that evening will be, of course,
covering it across the civic media network too. And so, you know, there's going to be, it's,
you know, we're right back to it Wisconsin. We're right back into the campaigns and the ads and
the debates and everything that we were so exhausted by, by November of last year, we're right back
to it in March of this year. And we need to talk to our family members and our friends. Just, I think
this is the best way to counter that big money. It's just person to person stressing the importance
of this race and turning out to vote. Dan Schaefer, political editor here at Civic Media Founder
of the Reconvapulation Area. Thanks so much for being my guest on this Wisconsin forward podcast.
Thanks so much. From my next podcast, I'm going to be tackling the big issue of how to confront
Trump, Elon Musk, and fascism here in the United States. You're not going to want to miss that one.
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