Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee circuit court judge and self-described progressive, won an 11-percentage point victory, shifting the court’s ideological balance of power at a moment when major legal clashes over abortion and redistricting are looming.
Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature is now demanding that Protasiewicz recuse from – that is, excuse herself from – considering two recently filed lawsuits that challenge the state’s legislative maps, which heavily favor the GOP, as unlawful partisan gerrymanders. They argue that she cannot be fair because during her campaign in the nonpartisan judicial race, she received millions of dollars from the state Democratic Party and criticized the state’s Republican-drawn maps as “rigged.”
For their part, the state Republican Party and its allies spent millions backing Protasiewicz’s opponent, who once defended a prior version of the maps in court.
As this controversy unfolds, it is important to know the law and practice of judicial recusal and impeachment in Wisconsin and beyond – a topic that we, as scholars of state courts and constitutions, have studied closely.
In short, recusal is rare, and impeachment is even rarer.
Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee circuit court judge and self-described progressive, won an 11-percentage point victory, shifting the court’s ideological balance of power at a moment when major legal clashes over abortion and redistricting are looming.
Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature is now demanding that Protasiewicz recuse from – that is, excuse herself from – considering two recently filed lawsuits that challenge the state’s legislative maps, which heavily favor the GOP, as unlawful partisan gerrymanders. They argue that she cannot be fair because during her campaign in the nonpartisan judicial race, she received millions of dollars from the state Democratic Party and criticized the state’s Republican-drawn maps as “rigged.”
For their part, the state Republican Party and its allies spent millions backing Protasiewicz’s opponent, who once defended a prior version of the maps in court.
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