(LifeSiteNews) — Wisconsinites go to the polls on Tuesday to vote for a new justice to fill an upcoming vacancy on the State Supreme Court, a decision which is likely to determine the fate of the Dairy State’s newly-enforceable abortion ban.
Incumbent conservative Justice Patience Roggensack is retiring when her term expires on July 31, and in February, conservative Daniel Kelly and committed pro-abortion advocate Janet Protasiewicz advanced to face off at Tuesday’s general election.
Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Family Action have both endorsed Kelly, citing his avowed textualist philosophy and his previous tenure on the state’s highest court. He is also endorsed by the National Rifle Association and an array of Wisconsin judges and county sheriffs.
Protasiewicz is endorsed by Hillary Clinton, former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List and Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
Advertisements for Protasiewicz’s campaign have saturated the Wisconsin airwaves, telephones and mailboxes with a most aggressive assurance she will legislate from the bench as “a critical vote” to “overturn Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban.”
“She’s making it really clear that she intends to be a politician who simply dresses up like a judge,” Kelly told the Daily Caller this weekend.
And heading into the election, Kelly remains “cautiously optimistic” for a victory, yet openly considered the alternative with the outlet as well.
“It’s entirely possible that I’ve misread my fellow Wisconsinites: maybe they’re tired of the Constitution, maybe they don’t really care about the liberties it protects, maybe they’re content with having Janet … [dictate] what laws they can and cannot have, and which liberties they may or may not enjoy,” Kelly said. “I think that would be a crying shame.”
Other issues that could be impacted by the outcome include redistricting which has helped Republicans maintain a legislative advantage, along with determining majority control of the court for the 2024 presidential election, should Wisconsin’s outcome be contested as it was for the former election.
Given the high stakes, Fox News reports that spending for this race is nearly three times the national record going over $42 million, with Protasiewicz favored by $6 million.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin received $1 million in donations from George Soros and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, along with a $12,000 donation from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a Spring 2023 campaign finance report. The party then turned around and awarded Protasiewicz $8 million in monetary donations and approximately $700,000 in non-monetary funds, according to Daily Caller.
“If I win, I want to be able to serve the people of Wisconsin as a justice, not an adjunct of a political party,” Kelly told the Daily Caller. “When you receive that kind of money from a political party, the implications are unmistakable: you are an adjunct of that political party.”
In contrast, the Republican party awarded Kelly just under $500,000 in funds including “$457,867 in-kind donations and only $33,657 in monetary donations, this period’s finance report indicates.”
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, it allowed scores of state pro-life laws across the country to be enforced for the first time in nearly half a century. Among them was 940.04, a law originating in 1849 which remained applicable up until that decision in 1973. The statute makes it a felony for an abortionist (but not a pregnant mother) to commit an abortion for any reason other than to save the mother’s life.
Wisconsin Democrat Gov. Tony Evers has threatened to give clemency to any abortionist prosecuted under the law, and Democrat Attorney General Josh Kaul says he will not prosecute anyone who violates it (both men won re-election to their current offices last November). But the threat of the law being enforced by lower levels of government has still gotten Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to suspend abortions until the legal landscape changes.
Evers and Kaul also filed a legal challenge to the law, claiming that modern state laws effectively cancel it out and that it was too old to have the consent of current Wisconsinites (a premise that, if adopted, would have drastic ramifications for all corners of American law).
The fate of that challenge will most likely hinge on the outcome of Tuesday’s Supreme Court race, and whether liberals or conservatives are more motivated to turn out to vote.
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