Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll hear from a Republican congressional member on these matters next week on this program.
In the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, we are two months away from Election Day. The seat is currently held by Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, but she decided not to run again. Liberals currently hold a 4 to 3 majority, so the winner of this race will not change the balance of the court. The conservative candidate is Appellate Court Judge Maria Lazar, and the liberal candidate is Appellate Court Judge Chris Taylor. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz sat down with each of the candidates tonight. We hear from Maria Lazar.

Zac Schultz:
Well, Judge Lazar, thanks for coming in today.

Maria Lazar:
Thank you for having me.

Zac Schultz:
So let’s start with your judicial philosophy. How would you describe it and how does it guide you from the bench?

Maria Lazar:
I describe my philosophy as originalism with a slice of textualism, which means for those who are not law nerds like me, which means that I look at the documents and the laws as they’re written, and I interpret them from that point of view. And if you have to go a little bit outside, I do, but I don’t go all the way outside to intent of legislators and things like that.

Zac Schultz:
So obviously this race is now an open seat because Justice Bradley decided not to run again. What was your first thought when she announced she was not going to do that?

Maria Lazar:
Well, it was a surprise. My thoughts were that I looked at the last election, and I thought that it was so politicized for the people in the state of Wisconsin that I thought they actually could use a judge or a justice like me, who’s someone who is calm, judicial, has the experience and will not legislate from the bench.

Zac Schultz:
Has she given you any guidance? Have you reached out to her about what it’s like to run for Supreme Court?

Maria Lazar:
I’ve talked to several of the past justices. I’ve talked to anyone who will talk to me, and actually more people talked to me than you would think.

Zac Schultz:
How much money is going to be needed to win this race?

Maria Lazar:
I’m not positive on that. I know it will not be anywhere close to last year.

Zac Schultz:
So in what way? How is this different from, I guess, the last two races when control of the court was up for grabs?

Maria Lazar:
Well, that’s one thing. I think what I meant by not being anywhere close, I think the numbers were bigger because it would have changed the composition of the court. This time we’re talking about a position that is going to be most likely in the minority, but someone who will stand up to be a strong voice for the common-sense people of my home state.

Zac Schultz:
So some of the early fundraising totals came out, and you raised about $200,000, your opponent close to $2 million. Some people raised their eyebrows at that but you got into this race after her and you’re trying to, I guess, fight your way into kind of an oxygen starved environment when it comes to fundraising. So what’s it been like for you?

Maria Lazar:
Well, that’s true. So I started on October 1. So I think the numbers actually are relatively good for starting that late. Also since January, which was the cutoff date, January 1, we’ve had a big groundswell of support from people who’ve recognized and actually heard about this race and realize there is no primary, and they’ve looked at it and they’ve said, “This is a race and a candidate they’re interested in supporting.”

Zac Schultz:
So when you look at the last two elections, has that impacted morale for the number of people paying attention to this race, or perhaps for people getting behind your campaign and seeing, well, the last two conservative candidates lost in rather large fashion.

Maria Lazar:
I don’t — I don’t know if it’s impacted morale. What I will say is this. I think that the state of Wisconsin is looking at these races and they’re asking who’s running and why people are running and for what reason? And when I look at this race, the reason I am running is because I want to be someone on that court who represents the law for the state of Wisconsin. I want to be someone who is their voice, bringing diversity of thought and judicial backgrounds and experience to that court. I don’t look at those past races as anything indicative of what’s going to happen. In fact, I’m kind of hoping that there’s going to be a line in the sand drawn now where we can look forward and say, who’s the better judicial candidate, who has more experience. And I think in this race, it’s pretty clear that that’s my candidacy.

Zac Schultz:
When you compare the records of the two candidates here, you’re both circuit court judges. You’re both now in the appellate court. So how do you explain to the public that the difference in your background?

Maria Lazar:
Well, numbers, numbers are the reason. So I spent 20 years in private practice. I spent five years at the Department of Justice representing the state of Wisconsin. But I spent seven years in the circuit court in every branch: criminal, civil, juvenile, mental commitments. My opponent spent two years in criminal. I’ve spent four years in the Court of Appeals, published many written opinions. My opponent has spent two. I think when you add up the numbers, it’s pretty clear who has the judicial and legal experience.

Zac Schultz:
Obviously, there’s a pretty high-profile race for governor also kicking off right now. When we talk about that oxygen starvation of people paying attention, how do you cut through to let people know, hey, this race is really important?

Maria Lazar:
Well, you’re right. So my race is April, April 7th and all the other races are in November. I think since I’ve been on the Circuit court and the Court of Appeals, I have continually gone to my 12 counties and anywhere else, including Milwaukee, to talk to people, to talk to high school kids, college kids about the courts, about why it’s so important. And I do that all the time. So I think this is just a continuation of telling people why this race is so important. It’s in April because it’s nonpartisan and it’s in April because that’s how Wisconsin Legislature has determined it to be.

Zac Schultz:
We’ve seen in the past couple of races talk more about their own personal values versus issues. And that’s a change compared to races in prior decades. How are you talking about your values versus issues, and what does that mean to the public when they’re listening and they want to hear maybe more, more clues to what you actually feel or how you might rule, even though that’s obviously not what you’re supposed to be talking about?

Maria Lazar:
So you mentioned two things that are really important. So how I might rule is never an issue. And no judge, no justice, no candidate should ever say that. But we’ve looked at the rules and we’ve looked at the ethical rules, and we’ve determined that it’s possible to tell the state of Wisconsin more information about where I stand, what I stand up for, and what issues I believe are important and how I view the law, how I interpret the law, what my philosophies are. So on my website, you can go there — JudgeMariaLazar.com, you can go there and it has my positions on important issues that are set there, written in black and white so people can see it, can see what I stand for. I don’t say how I will rule on a case, but I say what I believe is important.

Zac Schultz:
Is that frustrating when you speak to people that are potentially voters who they want to hear more, they want to hear you talk like a politician because they think of these races more political as opposed to an independent judicial race.

Maria Lazar:
They do. And in some respects, I’ll go places where there will be politicians speaking. And it’s always that interesting dichotomy between the calm demeanor of a judge versus the politician who’s yelling at the room and screaming at everybody. But I think that’s what people want. They want their judges not to be someone who’s yelling with their hair on fire in the room. They want someone they think they would like to have adjudicate their cases. So when I go and talk to people, I explain to them that I can’t tell them how I’ll rule on case A versus B, but I do tell them, here’s how I rule. Here’s how I respect people in my court, here’s what I think of victims’ rights, those sort of things. I think that gets across to people. They recognize that there are certain limits and that we’re bound by those limits, or we should be.

Zac Schultz:
When it comes to precedence, you’ve mentioned a couple of times that if you win, you would be in the minority. But that’s not a forever thing. As we’ve seen, the court can change. What is the standard when it comes to overruling precedent?

Maria Lazar:
Well — so people have to understand that it’s — precedent means that you don’t just because the court changes composition, you don’t necessarily go back and then revisit things you’ve just done. Precedent is that you respect, you give stare decisis. It’s a credit, and it’s a benefit to cases that have been done. And you give them time to maybe air, to be looked at. When courts have overturned precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court in general, it’s something that’s maybe 20, 30 years down the road. It’s not something that they just do willy nilly as Scalia would say, it’s something that you have to have seen that it doesn’t work. You can’t just say, “I’m now the member of the majority so everything that was done, I get to undo.” That’s not how courts work. We need to restore the respect and integrity in those courts and have them move forward and not always be looking back to things that they want to change.

Zac Schultz:
And finally, will you seek Donald Trump’s endorsement? We saw Brad Schimel go out and ask for that towards the end of his campaign.

Maria Lazar:
I’m not seeking endorsements of anyone who’s out of the state of Wisconsin. If someone looks at my campaign and they agree with my vision, my idea that we need to restore justice and integrity to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, I would welcome the discussion but I’m not seeking anything.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Judge Lazar, thanks for your time.

Maria Lazar:
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.