Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel says liberal justices were ‘driven by their emotions’
The former Republican attorney general said the justices, all of whom are women, lack objectivity.
Brad Schimel, the Republican former Wisconsin attorney general who is running against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford to replace retiring state Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, said in an interview last year that the liberal justices on the court “are being driven by their emotions.”
All four of the justices are women.
The high-stakes election to replace Bradley, who will retire on July 31, will take place on April 1 and will determine whether liberal justices will retain control of the court.
In a Nov. 12, 2024, interview with radio host Meg Ellefson, Schimel, who also served as a judge in Waukesha County and is the former Waukesha County district attorney, talked about a state Supreme Court hearing the previous day on the legality of a state law that has in the past been interpreted as banning abortion. Schimel has been open about his opposition to abortion.
Schimel said: “There were times that, when that camera went on, several of the liberal justices, they were on the brink of losing it. You could see it in their eyes, and you could hear it in the tone of their voice.
“They are being driven by their emotions. A Supreme Court justice had better be able to set their personal opinions and their emotions aside and rule on the law objectively. We don’t have that objectivity on this court. This is why I’m in this race, because we have to restore that.”
Jacob Fischer, a spokesperson for the Schimel campaign, told the Washington Post that there was “no mention of gender” in Schimel’s comments about the justices. Asked about the comments after a roundtable discussion at the Milwaukee GOP Hispanic Community Center, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, Schimel said: “It’s plainly clear that one of the justices, at least, was not able to stay objective. She had lost control of her emotions. … Men do that, too, but she could not stay objective. In that case, she was literally yelling at an attorney,” adding that he was referring to Justice Jill Karofsky.
Schimel has said that although he is “pro-life,” if elected, he would respect the will of the voters.
The Journal Sentinel reported that Crawford responded to Schimel’s remarks after a recent appearance at Marquette University Law School. “What’s striking to me is that Brad Schimel seems to be not just campaigning against me, but campaigning against several justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Crawford said. “I’m not sure why he is attacking other sitting justices on the Supreme Court. I have certainly not done that, and I don’t intend to.”
The four Supreme Court justices, Karofsky, Bradley, Rebecca Dallet, and Janet Protasiewicz, released a statement in response: “Unfortunately, Brad Schimel is showing he has an antiquated and distorted view of women. By suggesting that women get too emotional and are unfit to serve as judges and justices, he turns back decades of progress for women. … These petty and personal attacks have no place in our campaigns and courtrooms, and are just one more reason that we have endorsed Susan Crawford for Justice.”
Crawford has received endorsements from all four liberal justices, the Wisconsin Democratic Party, EMILYs List, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, and labor unions in the state, and her campaign has raised over $5 million.
In an online press conference held on March 1, Senate Democratic Leader Dianne Hesselbein and Assembly Democratic Leader Greta Neubauer spoke out about Schimel’s comments.
Hesselbein said Schimel was using “outdated stereotypes to suggest that our Supreme Court majority is incapable of doing their job and interpreting state law fairly and impartially. To say that’s shocking is to put it mildly. Brad Schimel’s views of women belong with Wisconsin’s abortion ban: left in 1849 where they belong.”
Neubauer said: “What’s important to remember as these comments from Brad Schimel come to light is not just that Schimel holds outdated views about women and what we’re capable of. It’s that his “judgment and choices have real-world implications that make Wisconsin women less safe.”
