By Kevin Murphy

Voters in the April 2 election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court have choices in candidates with sharply differing political backgrounds in the non-partisan contest.

Both are appellate judges on the Waukesha-based District II Court of Appeals, but arrived there from completely opposite directions. Judge Lisa Neubauer was appointed by then Gov. James Doyle in 2007, and has been elected twice since.

She had donated $8,100 to a Doyle campaign. Also, her husband, Jeff Neubauer, chaired the Wisconsin Democratic Party and served as Bill Clinton’s campaign manager for the state in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.

Their daughter, State Rep. Greta Neubauer, is a Democrat from Racine.

Brian Hagedorn was appointed to the District III Court in December 2015, by then Gov. Scott Walker. Hagedorn ran unopposed in 2017.

Hagedorn was been Walker’s chief legal counsel from 2010 to 2015. Hagedorn helped draft Act 10, Walker’s signature piece of legislation that removed collective bargaining privileges from state employees and brought thousands of demonstrators to the Capitol in 2011.

Now, both candidates are running to succeed Justice Shirley Abrahamson who is retiring after 40 years on the state’s high court.

A victory by Neubauer would preserve the 4-3 conservative majority on the court, while a win by Hagedorn would increase the court’s conservative block to 5-2.

In the first televised debate recently, candidates accused each other of being beholden to special interest groups and challenged their ability to be independent.

Neubauer called Hagedorn “a political operative” for Walker.

Hagedorn responded that he didn’t make decisions, “I did law and law at the highest level.”

Neubauer’s television ads and ads by anti-Hagedorn groups, have cited Hagedorn’s ties conservative ideology. Ads by pro-Hagedorn groups link Neubauer to Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, former President Barrack Obama’s attorney general, whose group is spending $350,000 in the state to elect Neubauer.

University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said supreme court campaigns have grown extremely political and increasing costly to run.

“They’ve become more intensely ideological battles in the past decade as groups beyond the political parties, including pro-business, civil rights, and unions, are spending more money than ever before,” he said.

Interest in the elections stems from the court becoming narrowly divided and big issues like Act 10, voter ID and redistricting, really matter, and the state Supreme Court is where they’re largely resolved, Burden said.

“With only one seat up during an election whoever wins gets a major stake in the outcome of these important issues,” he said.

In an attempt to paint Hagedorn as an extreme candidate and hopefully in an unwinnable position, Neubauer has brought up Hagedorn’s earning fees from speaking to Alliance Defending Freedom. The Christian legal organization has supported criminalizing sodomy and urged passage of laws requiring transgendered people to get sterilized and obtain identify cards listing the names and genders they wanted to be.

“Hagedorn has made statements in the past that seem out of step with the public today, some of those he has since disallowed,” Burden said. “The private school he has supported has had exclusionary practices that may have some voters questioning how his personal preferences will affect he behaves on the court.”

Hagedorn’s conservative positions on some social issues prompted the Wisconsin Realtors Association to pull its endorsement and ask for their $18,000 contribution be returned.

He has called out Neubauer for attacking his faith as an attack on all people of faith. He also said that being a faithful Christian doesn’t mean he can’t be a judge faithful to the law.

Burden has seen only a few studies analyzing Neubauer’s and Hagedorn’s record as appellate judges and they’re not very helpful in determining what kind of justice they will be, as their opinions fall in line with many other judges.

That may be due to many of the cases courts decide are not rooted in political philosophies. Instead, financial matters, criminal proceedings and regulatory disputes don’t involve a lot of ideology, so voters have a “gamble” a little bit on what positions judges take when they become Supreme Court justices.

Neubauer could take some comfort in the electoral success Democrat candidates have achieved statewide beginning with last April’s Supreme Court election, when Milwaukee County Judge Rebecca Dallett defeated Sauk County Judge Michael Screnock, a Walker appointee.

“There’s been a different wind in the past year or so. Conservatives won regularly in the 2000s but Dallett was the first mark of success liberals have had with the exception of the re-election of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley to the court…Neubauer is hoping to build on that and the November election successes. This race is an important barometer to see if the Democrats can sustain their success,” Burden said.

Calls to the Hagedorn and Neubauer campaigns about election issues were not returned before deadline.