Here & Now

Jill Karofsky on the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election

Frederica Freyberg:

We were to turn to liberal candidate and Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz now. However, she asked Justice Jill Karofsky to appear in her place due to illness. Justice Karofsky ran and won her seat on the high court after defeating Daniel Kelly in 2020. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Jill Karofsky:

I’m happy to be here. Thank you for letting me pinch-hit this morning.

Frederica Freyberg:

It does seem irregular, what with a sitting Supreme Court justice standing in for a candidate, but how does this speak to the high stakes in this election?

Jill Karofsky:

I think everything that Wisconsinites care about is on the line in this election, from abortion rights to fair maps to the 2024 election to democracy itself, all of those things are going to be on the ballot on April 4th and certainly anyone who has been in Wisconsin for 20 seconds can’t escape the fact that this election is happening, that Wisconsinites and voters are paying attention, and that the whole nation is watching to see how this election turns out.

Frederica Freyberg:

Janet Protasiewicz called Daniel Kelly a true threat to democracy, pointing to his work as an attorney for the Republicans hatching the fraudulent elector scheme following the 2020 election. Couldn’t it be said that he was just doing his job?

Jill Karofsky:

I think Daniel Kelly is a true threat to democracy. He is corrupt and he is extreme and we have many, many examples of that. I started to lay that case out in 2020 and Janet Protasiewicz has continued to make that case now in 2023. If you just look at the decisions that he rendered when he was on the Supreme Court, I have never seen a judge first decide what the outcome of a case is going to be, the outcome that he wants, and then work backwards more than Dan Kelly. You have the example of the Zignego case where he recused himself and then received $20,000 from the Zignegos and unrecused himself. I didn’t even know unrecusing yourself was a thing when someone first asked me about it. It’s an oxymoron. It can’t be. These can’t — still, three years later, you can’t explain the consistency of his rulings, where he always ruled in favor of the right-wing special interests when he was on the court. He’s been campaigning with insurrectionists, with antisemites, with election deniers, and then just this week, he and his cronies put an ad up about a case where they ended up — it’s hard to even find the words for what they did to this poor victim. They harassed her, they revictimized her, they made her relive this horrible, horrible sexual assault. She didn’t want any part of this campaign, and if that is not acting in an extreme and corrupt manner, I don’t know what is.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, the Kelly campaign attacks with slogans like “No jail Janet” for sentencing decisions. What’s your response to those attacks and her being called a serial liar by the conservative opponent?

Jill Karofsky:

Those are baseless lies. They are meant to distract from the fact that Dan Kelly lost in 2020 and he’s very likely to lose in 2023. Compare their records. Judge Janet Protasiewicz was in the district attorney’s office in Milwaukee for 25 years. She stood up for the people of Milwaukee. She protected their rights. She protected victims. She held defendants accountable. She made sure that defendants’ rights were not violated, and then she’s been serving on the circuit court in Milwaukee County for almost a decade. Compare that to the career of Dan Kelly. Dan Kelly has never sentenced a single person. Janet Protasiewicz has sentenced thousands and thousands of people. They cherry pick a couple of cases, they don’t fully disclose what the facts are of those cases, and then they throw up these TV ads with all the outside money that’s coming from the right-wing special interests because they want to keep Dan Kelly on the court because they know Dan Kelly will carry their water and he will not spill a drop of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

Janet Protasiewicz has been plain on her views supporting abortion rights and that Wisconsin’s legislative maps are rigged. Why would openly stated personal views not hinder impartiality as a justice but Daniel Kelly’s endorsement by anti-abortion groups, for example, would?

Jill Karofsky:

Well, look. I think there’s — I think Dan Kelly is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Right? What Janet Protasiewicz has done is she has said, I’m going to tell you what my values are. Dan Kelly has been saying, oh, I’m not going to be, you know, overtly tell you what my values are. Voters in Wisconsin are intelligent. They are sophisticated and they’re not going to be fooled by that ad. Just look at Dan Kelly’s words and his actions. We can look in his writings to see how he feels about abortion. You can look at the right to life who has endorsed him. In order for him to get that endorsement, he had to pledge to be anti-endorsement. When it comes to the maps, the maps are rigged. I wrote in a dissent that the maps, I didn’t use the word rigged, but if you read the dissent that I wrote in the final case in WEC v. Johnson, err — Johnson v. WEC, you will see those maps are rigged. You can’t be in this state and not realize that. Janet Protasiewicz is saying the quiet part out loud. Dan Kelly is trying to remain quiet but look at his words and his actions. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that if Dan Kelly has the chance to rule on an abortion case, how he will rule on that case, and it’s hard for me to believe that any pregnant person in this state would want Dan Kelly making such an important medical decision on their behalf.

Frederica Freyberg:

For his part, Kelly states that he practices the rule of law and his opponent, what he calls the rule of Janet, intending, he says, to place herself above the law. What about that?

Jill Karofsky:

Janet Protasiewicz has talked several times. I’ve heard her talk about times where she has followed the law and she hasn’t wanted to. She talks about when she’s had to sentence people and when she’s received sentencing recommendations from the state and she’s received sentencing recommendations from the defense and she has to, in the end, choose what the right sentence is based on the sentencing factors that we have in Wisconsin. Dan Kelly, on the other hand, he cannot prove, he cannot show you one time when he sat on the Supreme Court when he did not rule in favor of the right-wing special interests. So I think we really have to question here who is following the rule of law. It’s clear it is not Dan Kelly. It most definitely is Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to recusal rules, does Janet Protasiewicz hold that individual justices alone should get to decide when to recuse or step aside from a case because of a conflict of interest? With all the money in this race, it seems that there could be a lot of conflicts.

Jill Karofsky:

Sure. Let’s look at the recusal rule. They were supposed to have a hearing on the recusal rule back in 2016 or 2017 when Dan Kelly was on the court. They wouldn’t even allow a hearing. Dan Kelly voted against the Supreme Court getting the information it needed in order to craft a recusal rule that would be fair to voters, that would be fair to donors, that would be fair to candidates, that would be fair to justices. In this race, Janet Protasiewicz has said, “I received millions of dollars from Democratic Party of Wisconsin, so if they are a party in a lawsuit, I will recuse myself.” Dan Kelly has made no such promise, even though he has received, I think as of yesterday, it was either $5.1 or $5.8 million from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

Frederica Freyberg:

We have just 15 seconds left. Final pitch in this race.

Jill Karofsky:

This is probably the most significant Supreme Court election in our lifetime. Please go and vote on April 4th for your seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Justice Jill Karofsky, thanks very much for, as you said, pinch-hitting.

Jill Karofsky:

My pleasure. Thank you