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janet protasiewicz
'He Wants It All': Musk-Linked Group Pours Money Into Wisconsin Supreme Court Race
"Musk's attempt to buy Wisconsin's Supreme Court is a red alert that his attack on democracy isn't limited to gutting the federal government," said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler.
Feb 19, 2025
A nonprofit with links to billionaire and GOP megadonor Elon Musk is spending over a million dollars in the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, a high stakes contest that will decide whether liberals or conservatives control the state's highest judicial body.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said in a statement Monday that the news is a sign that Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump know the Wisconsin Supreme Court could be a check "on their lawless coup"—likely in reference to efforts by Musk and the Trump administration more broadly to radically reshape the federal government in recent weeks.
The dark money group, Building America's Future—which was a financial backer for several Republican-alignedsuper political action committees (PACs) during the 2024 cycle—is spending at least $1.5 million in the state, including on ads that are slated to start running later this week, Politicoreported Wednesday. Wisconsin outlets first reported that Building America's Future was involved in the race on Monday.
The ads are expected to be in support of GOP-backed candidate Brad Schimel, who is facing off against liberal-aligned candidate Susan Crawford, and whom Musk has boosted on social media.
In October 2024, multiple outlets reported that Musk gave millions to Building America's Future. According to Reuters, those donations started in 2022, "illustrating quiet financial support for right-wing causes even before the billionaire entrepreneur in July endorsed former President Donald Trump's bid for reelection."
"Musk's attempt to buy Wisconsin's Supreme Court is a red alert that his attack on democracy isn't limited to gutting the federal government," Wikler said. "He wants it all."
In a similar vein, Crawford's campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that "it's not surprising that Schimel is groveling for the support of shady special interests—he's already been caught begging on his knees for far-right donors to give him cash, and now Elon seems to be answering his pleas."
At a recent event in Jefferson County, Schimel "all but begged" conservative groups to get involved in the race and lamented the cost of TV ads, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Crawford herself has weighed in, writing on X on Tuesday, "Elon Musk is buying off Brad Schimel."
Dark money groups were expected to wade into this race given the Wisconsin Supreme Court's prominence in national politics in recent years.
In April 2023, elected Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, flipping majority control of the body from conservative to liberal for the first time in 15 years. Groups like unions and the political arm of Planned Parenthood donated money in support of Protasiewicz—an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, ballot access, and union protections.
In summer 2024, the state Supreme Court moved to reinstate the ability to return absentee ballots via drop boxes in Wisconsin, a state the U.S. President Donald Trump narrowly won that November.
In January, Musk re-posted a social media comment about Protasiewicz's victory and the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision to reinstate the drop boxes for absentee ballots and wrote: "Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!"
The race is one of the first high-profile special elections to take place after Trump's victory in November, and looking ahead, the ideological makeup of the Wisconsin Supreme Court could influence the maps used in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026, per Politico.
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'Voters Won Big': Wisconsin Supreme Court Restores Ballot Drop Boxes
"At the very heart of our democracy is the fundamental freedom to vote," said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. "This is a victory for our democracy."
Jul 05, 2024
Democracy defenders in Wisconsin celebrated on Friday after the state Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballot drop boxes can be located throughout communities for the November elections, reversing a decision from two years ago, when there was a majority of right-wing justices.
"Wisconsin voters won big today with the decision to reinstate drop boxes across the Badger State," said All Voting is Local Wisconsin state director Sam Liebert in a statement. "Drop boxes are an incredibly popular form of voting that offer greater access to the elections for those who may not be able to wait in line at the polls, particularly those with disabilities."
"Wisconsin voters should have more options, and drop boxes are a secure and easy way to increase civic participation and ensure voters have another safe, secure, and accessible way to cast their ballot," Liebert added.
Common Cause Wisconsin co-chair Penny Bernard Schaber, whose group joined an amicus brief to the court in May, also welcomed the ruling, saying that "reinstating the use of secure ballot drop boxes is good for all of us in Wisconsin."
"It is especially good for individual voters who have mobility issues and time constraints that make it difficult for them to go into and out of a polling place or an election clerk's office," the former Democratic state representative similarly stressed. "Secure ballot drop boxes are a necessary and safe way to return our ballots."
Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) declared: "This is huge news for democracy! Making it easier for folks to vote is a good thing."
Common Cause Wisconsin pointed out that "voter drop boxes have been used since before 2016 and in 2020-21, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of drop boxes was expanded to 570 located in 66 of Wisconsin's 72 counties. The expanded number of drop boxes, authorized by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), offered voters a more convenient and safe way to ensure that their absentee ballots could be returned in time to be counted, in part because of the uncertainty of timely delivery of ballots by the U.S. Postal Service."
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote in the majority opinion that "our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes. It merely acknowledges what Wis. Stat. § 6.87(4)(b)1. has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion."
She was joined by the other three liberals, including Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election last year ended right-wing control of the court. Wisconsinites are preparing for a similar electoral battle next year, when Walsh Bradley plans to retire.
The court earlier this week agreed to take up a pair of high-profile abortion cases. Late last year, the liberal majority threw out Wisconsin's legislative maps, which were rigged to favor Republicans. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new maps in February.
Applauding the ruling on Friday, Evers said that the court "affirmed what we've been saying all along: Drop box voting is safe, secure, and legal, and local clerks should be empowered to make decisions that make sense for their local communities."
"At the very heart of our democracy is the fundamental freedom to vote," he continued. "This is a victory for our democracy. And we're going to keep fighting to ensure that every eligible voter can cast their ballot safely, securely, and as easily as possible to make sure their voices are heard."
The decision comes as Wisconsin is expected to play a key role in this year's contest for the White House. Democratic President Joe Biden, who is now seeking reelection and campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, won the state by about 20,000 votes in 2020, when he beat former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee.
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Planned Parenthood Asks Wisconsin Supreme Court to Affirm Abortion Rights
"Wisconsinites deserve the ability to make decisions that shape their future—to make decisions about if or when they become a parent. And they deserve to know this right is protected by our state constitution."
Feb 22, 2024
Continuing a legal battle that began with the nationwide reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Planned Parenthood on Thursday filed a petition urging the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court to swiftly protect the right to abortion.
"We're asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to answer this question: Does the Wisconsin Constitution protect the right to access abortion care and a provider's right to provide abortion care?" Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) president and CEO Tanya Atkinson explained in a video shared on social media.
"Wisconsinites deserve the ability to make decisions that shape their future—to make decisions about if or when they become a parent," she stressed. "And they deserve to know this right is protected by our state constitution."
According to the Wisconsin State Journal:
The lawsuit asks the high court to declare that abortion rights are protected in the constitutional provision stating, "All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
"At the sacred core of the inherent right to life and liberty lies the right to determine what one does with one's own body, including whether and when to have a child," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit doesn't seek to define when exactly abortion rights are guaranteed.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has clinics that offer abortion care in Dane, Milwaukee, and Sheboygan counties. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, PPWI stopped providing abortions due to uncertainty over an 1849 state law.
PPWI decided to resume abortion care last September, in response to Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper's July ruling that the law only applies to feticide, or the act of killing a fetus, and not consensual pre-viability abortion. Joel Urmanski, Sheboygan County's Republican district attorney, asked Schlipper to reconsider her decision, but she reaffirmed it in December.
Urmanski on Tuesday asked the state's top court to bypass the appellate level and weigh in. In response, PPWI chief strategy officer Michelle Velasquez said in a statement that the group "vehemently opposes" his view that the 175-year-old law took effect upon Roe's reversal but "we do agree with DA Urmanski that bypass to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is appropriate, as this issue is of statewide importance and that requiring this case to be first decided by the Court of Appeals will only result in needless delay."
"Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will continue to provide abortion care services at our Water Street Health Center in Milwaukee, Madison East Health Center, and Sheboygan Health Center," Velasquez added. "We will continue essential work to help protect and expand reproductive freedom in Wisconsin so that everyone who needs comprehensive reproductive healthcare in our state can get the nonjudgmental and compassionate care they deserve."
If the Wisconsin Supreme Court takes up the issue, its four liberal members are expected to affirm abortion rights, a key topic that led voters to end right-wing control of the court last April by electing Justice Janet Protasiewicz. However, even if the justices rule as anticipated, GOP state lawmakers across the country have ramped up efforts to restrict reproductive freedom since Dobbs.
Republicans in the Wisconsin State Assembly last month approved a bill that—if also passed by the Senate—could lead to a statewide referendum in the April election asking voters whether to ban abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy. However, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vowed to veto the measure, which would block it from the ballot.
After the January vote, Jon McCray Jones, a policy analyst at the ACLU of Wisconsin, toldtheGrio that already, "1 in 5 patients are now traveling out of state for abortion care," and a new ban would exacerbate challenges faced by marginalized communities.
Residents now deal with "healthcare deserts," because "many young people who are graduating from residency are opting to go into states that have linear abortion laws," Jones said, arguing that "politicians need to stay out of the uteruses of Wisconsinites."
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