Here & Now

Supreme Court Race: Lisa Neubauer

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to election news and the race to fill the state supreme court seat of retiring Justice Shirley Abrahamson. Election Day is April 2. That’s when two appeals court judges will appear on the ballot, Waukesha Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn and Wisconsin Court of Appeals Chief Judge Lisa Neubauer. We asked Judge Hagedorn to join us next week. Tonight we introduce you to Lisa Neubauer, who is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. She served as a law clerk for former U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb and was also a partner at Foley & Lardner law firm. Judge Neubauer was elected to the appeals court in 2008 and re-elected in 2014. The State Supreme Court first appointed her chief judge of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in 2015. Judge Neubauer joins us now from Milwaukee and thanks very much for being here.

Lisa Neubauer:

Oh, thank you for having me. I’m honored to have this opportunity to speak with you and the voters.

Frederica Freyberg:

Great. Well, we wanted to ask you first, why are you running for Supreme Court?

Lisa Neubauer:

I am running for the Supreme Court because I am fighting to protect an independent judiciary in our state. We have to have that true third branch that we all learned about in grade school civics: the independent, impartial, fair judiciary. And it starts at the top with our Supreme Court. So I am running because I have been that kind of judge now for over 11 years on the Court of Appeals, and I — and that is the kind of judge I will continue to be if I’m honored to be elected justice to the Supreme Court by the voters of our state.

Frederica Freyberg:

What specific experience do you bring to the job that would make you effective?

Lisa Neubauer:

I bring a lot of experiences to the job. I have over 31, 32 years in the law. As you said, I clerked for Judge Crabb for a year. And I was at Foley & Lardner for almost 20 years. I rose through the ranks. I was made partner. I had a lot of leadership positions at my firm. I was — I have now been on the Court of Appeals for 11 years, 11 years in January. And as you noted, I’m the chief judge of the court. I was appointed by the Supreme Court twice now. Again, leadership positions all along the way. I’ve had many leadership positions also on boards, a number of community-oriented boards, as well as state bar committees and other committees. I also bring collegiality to this court and that is something that one has to have as a successful lawyer, not only with your colleagues, with your clients and with your opposing counsel, but you also have to have it as a member of the court. And I’ve had 11 years of experience in trying to bring people together and to have good outcomes. And that’s really important for our Supreme Court.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to independence, you have Democratic family connections and have given money to Democratic candidates. Your opponent worked as Governor Walker’s chief legal counsel and has espoused very conservative views. Can you help our viewers understand how it is that for this nonpartisan office, we appear to have two partisan candidates?

Lisa Neubauer:

Well, I disagree with that when it comes to me. I have never given money to any political party or political candidate since I’ve been on the court, 11 years. And you can’t look at my decision-making over 11 years — and that’s literally thousands of cases — and say Lisa has any kind of an agenda, any kind of outcome in mind, any kind of ideology that drives her decision-making. Or, you know, again, any agenda. And that’s why I am so honored now to have the support of over 325 judges in this state. And that is judges from red counties, judges from blue counties. It is judges from, I think, over 62 counties in this state who trust me to continue to be the kind of judge I’ve been for 11 years and that is fair, impartial and independent.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, your opponent says that he believes he could put his views aside and be independent. Do you have any response to that?

Lisa Neubauer:

I don’t. I really think that there’s a lot of information out there now for voters to work with, in order to decide who they trust to be fair, impartial and independent. And that is going to be up to the voters to decide.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, there are conservative or liberal judicial philosophies that judges always reference. What is yours and how does that influence your decision-making?

Lisa Neubauer:

You know, as I travel around the state — and I have done so much of it. I’ve been to, you know, over 38 courthouse visits. I’ve been to many more counties than that. I’ve been to — I think at this point now — hundreds of events, thousands of phone calls. And people tell me what we want is we want a fair, impartial and independent judiciary. And they don’t want a liberal. They don’t want a conservative. They want to know that the person they’re electing is going to come to this position with an open mind, with no agenda, no ideology. And, as I said, that’s the kind of judge I’ve been and it’s not just that it’s the kind of judge I’ve been. It’s that I am so committed to that as a member of the judiciary because it’s so fundamental to our democracy. We have to have the people’s confidence that our court system is fair, impartial and independent. And when the people walk through the doors of our courts, they don’t have — you know, they’re not going to be met with some kind of thumb on the scale, some kind of, you know, an unlevel playing field. Our people have to have confidence that our judiciary is in its rightful place in our democracy. And that is the independent, impartial third branch.

Frederica Freyberg:

Which Supreme Court justice, past or present, do you most admire and why?

Lisa Neubauer:

Well, I’ll tell you, I get asked that question a lot. And what I like to say is that I literally have an 11-year track record. People ask that question because they want to have some insight into sort of where you will be. And I prefer, frankly, to be me. And I have, like I said, thousands of decisions out there. I have hundreds and hundreds of precedential decisions. So I really feel that that’s what I should be judged on in terms of how people look at me. Now, I realize that people don’t go out and read all of my decisions. But I think that the fact that I have 325 of the colleagues, in our state who are supporting me, tells you quite a bit. And, frankly, I have on our Court of Appeals, we have 16 judges currently, and I have 24 Court of Appeals judges. Those are both colleagues of my opponent and me. And these are the people who really know our work. And that’s current and future, 24 Court of Appeals judges supporting me.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there.

Lisa Neubauer:

Based on —

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Judge Lisa Neubauer, thanks very much for your time.

Lisa Neubauer:

Thank you.