A member of the secret panel studying Wisconsin Supreme Court justice’s impeachment backed her rival

Posted on by Associated Press

One of the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices tapped to investigate impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz for taking Democratic Party money accepted donations from the state Republican Party when he was on the court.

The former justice, Republican David Prosser, gave $500 to the conservative candidate who lost to Protasiewicz, did not recuse from cases involving a law he helped pass as a lawmaker and was investigated after a physical altercation with a liberal justice.

Prosser is one of three former justices tapped by the Republican Assembly speaker to investigate the criteria for taking the unprecedented step of impeaching a current justice. Speaker Robin Vos has floated impeachment because Protasiewicz accepted nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party and said during the campaign that heavily gerrymandered GOP-drawn legislative electoral maps were “unfair” and “rigged.”

The impeachment threat comes after Protasiewicz’s win this spring handed liberals a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, which bolstered Democratic hopes it would throw out the Republican maps, legalize abortion and chip away at Republican laws enacted over the past decade-plus.

It also comes at the same time that Assembly Republicans passed a sweeping redistricting reform bill Vos described as an “off ramp” to impeachment and Senate Republicans voted to fire the state's nonpartisan elections director. Both moves take on heightened importance in Wisconsin, one of a handful of swing states where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a point.

Vos won’t say who he’s chosen for the secret, three-judge impeachment review panel, but Prosser confirmed to The Associated Press that Vos asked him to participate. None of the other eight living former justices, six of whom are conservatives, have told the AP they have been picked. Justices are officially nonpartisan in Wisconsin, but in recent years the political parties have backed certain candidates. Others, like Prosser, formerly served in partisan positions.

A former liberal justice, Louis Butler, said he was not asked. Four former conservative justices — Jon Wilcox, Dan Kelly, 7th U.S. Circuit Court Chief Judge Diane Sykes and Louis Ceci — told the AP they were not asked.

Ceci, 96, is the oldest living former justice. He served on the court from 1982 to 1993 and served one term as a Republican in the state Assembly in the 1960s.

Ceci, interviewed at his suburban Milwaukee home in a retirement high-rise, said he doesn’t know anything about the impeachment threats Protasiewicz faces beyond what he reads in newspapers. Vos has not approached him about serving on the panel, he said.

A seventh former justice, Janine Geske, told the Wisconsin State Journal she was not asked. Vos said former Justice Michael Gableman, whom Vos fired from leading an investigation into the 2020 election, was not on it.

The most recently retired justice, conservative Patience Roggensack, declined to comment to the AP.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” she said Thursday, adding that she was on her way to a college class before hanging up.

Roggensack and Prosser voted to enact a rule allowing justices to sit on cases involving campaign donors. In 2017, a year after Prosser left the court, Roggensack voted to reject a call from 54 retired justices and judges to enact stricter recusal rules.

Roggensack, in 2020, sided with the conservative minority in a ruling that fell one vote short of overturning President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. And she endorsed Dan Kelly, the conservative opponent to Protasiewicz in this year’s election. Prosser donated $500 to Kelly, who replaced Prosser on the court after he retired.

Prosser served on the Supreme Court from 1998 to 2016 and also spent 18 years before that as a Republican member of the Assembly — two years as speaker.

There were numerous times during Prosser’s years on the court where he did not recuse himself from cases involving issues he had voted on as a member of the Legislature.

Prosser did recuse himself from cases involving the constitutionality of a cap on medical malpractice damages because he was speaker of the Assembly when the cap was instituted. But in 2004 he changed course and authored the majority opinion upholding the law he helped pass. He dissented from a 2005 Supreme Court ruling overturning the law.

Prosser also refused a request to recuse in 2015 from considering three cases related to an investigation into then-Gov. Scott Walker and conservative groups that supported him. The groups in question had spent $3.3 million to help elect Prosser in 2011.

He defended hearing the cases, saying that because the money was spent four years earlier, enough time had passed to make them irrelevant.

Prosser then voted with the majority to shut down the investigation.

Prosser was also embroiled in one the court’s most contentious periods in 2011, accused by a liberal justice of attempting to choke her. Impeachment was never raised as a possibility, even though police investigated but no charges were filed. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission recommended the court discipline him but nothing happened because the court lacked a quorum when three justices recused.

In 2016, Prosser received $25,000 of in-kind contributions from the Wisconsin Republican Party. Less than three weeks later he resigned with nearly three years left on his term.

Vos said Prosser’s past wouldn’t affect his ability to fairly offer advice on how to proceed.

“First of all, all he is doing is giving advice on whether or not someone ought to recuse and the criteria for impeachment,” Vos said. “That has nothing to do with what happened before when he was on the Supreme Court.”

Prosser said the charge given to him by Vos was investigating “whether there’s a legitimate reason for impeaching” Protasiewicz.

When asked whether he thinks the panel should include liberals, Prosser said, “I’m really not going to answer that question.”

“I really don’t know what the process is going to be, who’s going to be doing the writing,” Prosser said. “I just really don’t know.”

No matter who is on the impeachment review panel, Democrats say the process is a joke.

“The entire concept of having a secret panel deliberating in secret to advise an Assembly speaker on an unconstitutional impeachment on a justice who has yet to rule on a case is a farce,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler. “This is a charade.”

Vos said impeachment may be warranted if Protasiewicz doesn’t step down from hearing two Democratic-backed redistricting lawsuits seeking to undo Republican-drawn legislative maps.

Vos argues that Protasiewicz has prejudged the cases. She never said how she would rule on any lawsuit.

Under the Wisconsin Constitution, impeachment is reserved for “corrupt conduct in office or for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor.”

It is up to each justice to decide whether recusal in a case is warranted, and the conservative majority of the court adopted a rule saying that justices don’t have to recuse if they accepted money from parties arguing a case. Other current justices have also been outspoken on hot-button issues before they joined the court and all but one have taken money from political parties.

When asked Thursday if the panel would include liberals, Vos dodged the question.

“I’m trying to have people who are respected as smart,” Vos said. “And I think that you will find very quickly that the people that we asked are both of those categories. Hopefully they come back to us with their recommendations so that the Legislature has even more good information to act on whether or not it’s required for us to proceed with some kind of impeachment proceedings."

Former firearms executive turned gun industry critic to run for Montana governor

Posted on by Associated Press

Former firearms executive turned gun industry critic Ryan Busse is seeking the 2024 Democratic nomination to challenge first-term Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in Montana.

Busse told The Associated Press about his intentions in advance of a planned public announcement Thursday. It's his first run for public office.

If the 53-year-old from Kalispell makes it past next June's primary, he faces an uphill battle in trying to unseat Gianforte, who is able to draw from immense personal wealth to bankroll his campaign and whose party has dominated Montana during recent election cycles. Former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with a 16-point advantage over Joe Biden.

But Busse suggested that Republicans are vulnerable in the state after failing to keep housing prices affordable, not taking action to prevent potential property tax increases and threatening women’s health care by passing several abortion restrictions.

“To me this is a narrative about Greg Gianforte making this a playground for the wealthy and ignoring the people of Montana,” Busse said Wednesday. “They had time to extend massive tax breaks to industry, to profitable industry. They had time to blow a $2.8 billion surplus. They had time to discuss the impacts of this tax increase to Montana homeowners, and they chose to do nothing about it.”

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Recent increases in home valuations could lead to an $80 million spike in residential property taxes in each of the next two years, the Revenue Department estimated. The agency suggested a change in the state’s tax rate on residential property to avoid a tax increase, but the Republican-controlled Legislature did not adopt it, instead passing a $675 property tax rebate for resident homeowners in each of the next two years.

During a 25-year career in the firearms industry, Busse said, he directed the sale of almost 3 million guns from the manufacturer Kimber America. But he became disaffected as the increasingly politicized industry began aggressively marketing military-style assault rifles such as those used in numerous mass shootings.

Since leaving the industry in 2020, Busse has served as a policy adviser for Biden’s 2020 campaign and written a book and articles highly critical of the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers.

His remonstrations against America's gun culture could become a flashpoint in the campaign given the strong support for gun rights in Montana politics. Busse, who favors background checks before purchases but opposes bans on assault rifles, predicted Republicans will portray him as anti-gun.

“I know there’s a vast, frustrated majority out there that are decent, responsible gun owners, and those are the people I represent," he said.

Busse's two sons were among 16 young plaintiffs in a high-profile climate change lawsuit that resulted in a groundbreaking ruling last month that said Montana agencies were violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment by allowing fossil fuel development without considering greenhouse gas emissions.

“Ryan Busse is straight out of the far left’s central casting – an anti-gun extremist and radical environmentalist,” Montana Republican Party Chairman Don K. Kaltschmidt said in a statement.

Gianforte spokesperson Kaitlin Price declined to say if he intends to seek another term. She said his accomplishments in office include increasing funding for schools and teachers, paying off the state’s debt and cutting taxes.

“Governor Gianforte remains focused on building upon what he committed to do and has proudly accomplished so far,” Price said in a statement.

Gianforte is a former tech industry entrepreneur who first won public office with a victory in a special U.S. House election in 2017, a day after gaining national attention for assaulting a reporter covering his campaign.

He was reelected to the House in 2018 and two years later rolled to the governorship in a race against Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney. Gianforte spent millions of his own money on that campaign, which broke state spending records.

His victory wrested control of the governor’s seat from Democrats, who had held it 16 years.

Republican State Rep. Tanner Smith of Lakeside plans to challenge Gianforte in the primary. Smith is a business owner and school board trustee who said he would ensure high-quality education, increase teacher pay and support responsible fiscal policies that would allow the state to reduce taxes.

The filing deadline with the Secretary of State's Office for candidates to run in next year's election is March 11.

Jury awards $100,000 to Kentucky couple denied marriage license by ex-County Clerk Kim Davis

Posted on by Associated Press

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a Kentucky couple who sued former county clerk Kim Davis over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis, the former Rowan County clerk, drew international attention when she was briefly jailed in 2015 over her refusal, which she based on her belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

A jury in Ashland, Kentucky, awarded David Ermold and David Moore each $50,000 after deliberating on Wednesday, according to lawyers for Davis. A second couple who sued, James Yates and Will Smith, were awarded no damages on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge David Bunning.

Bunning sent Davis to jail for five days in 2015 after holding her in contempt of court. She was parodied on Saturday Night Live and embraced by conservative politicians who traveled to Kentucky to support her.

Davis was released only after her staff issued the licenses on her behalf but removed her name from the form. Kentucky's state legislature later enacted a law removing the names of all county clerks from state marriage licenses.

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Bunning ruled last year that Davis violated the constitutional rights of the two couples. In the ruling, Bunning reasoned that Davis “cannot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official.”

The trials held this week were held to decide damages against Davis. The former clerk had argued that a legal doctrine called qualified immunity protected her from being sued for damages by the couples.

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, which represented Davis in the case, said in a release Wednesday they “look forward to appealing this decision and taking this case to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Davis’ lawyers in the case in 2020.

Ermold and Moore had a highly publicized showdown with Davis at the Rowan County clerk's office in 2015 after they asked for a marriage license with news cameras surrounding them. When she refused, Moore asked under whose authority was she acting. She replied, “under God's authority.”

Ermold unsuccessfully ran for clerk of Rowan County in 2018, when Davis was defeated by another Democrat. Before running, Ermold and Moore returned to Davis' office to file to run for clerk, and Davis, who handled election filings, helped Ermold during a brief but cordial meeting.

Mitt Romney, one-time GOP presidential nominee who voted to convict Trump, won’t seek reelection

Posted on by Associated Press

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he will not run for reelection in 2024, creating a wide-open contest in a state that heavily favors Republicans and is expected to attract a crowded field.

Romney, a former presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, made the announcement in a video statement. The 76-year-old said the country is ready for new leadership.

“Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders," he said. "They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in."

Romney noted that he would be in his mid-80s at the end of another six-year Senate term. While he didn’t directly reference the ages of President Joe Biden, 80, or former President Donald Trump, 77, who are the leaders for their parties' 2024 presidential nominations, he accused both men of not responding enough to the growing national debt, climate change and other long-term issues.

Romney easily won election in reliably GOP Utah in 2018 but was expected to face more resistance from his own party after he emerged as one of the most visible members to break with Trump, who is still the party’s de-facto leader.

Romney in 2020 became the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president from their own party in an impeachment trial. Romney was the only Republican to vote against Trump in his first impeachment and one of seven to vote to convict him in the second.

Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Romney was booed by a gathering of the Utah Republican Party’s most active members months after his vote at the second impeachment trial, and a measure to censure him narrowly failed. Members of the party even flung the term “Mitt Romney Republican” at their opponents on the campaign trail in 2022’s midterm elections.

Still, Romney has been seen as broadly popular in Utah, which has long harbored a band of the party that’s favored civil conservatism and resisted Trump’s brash and norm-busting style of politics.

The state is home to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project; the anti-Trump Republican Evan McMullin, who launched a longshot 2016 presidential campaign; and GOP Gov. Spencer Cox, who has been critical of Trump and is also up for reelection in 2024.

More than a majority of the state’s population are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The faith arrived in the western state with pioneers fleeing religious persecution and spread globally with the religion’s missionaries, a legacy that’s left the church’s conservative members embracing immigrants and refugees.

Romney, a Brigham Young University graduate and one of the faith’s most visible members after his 2012 presidential campaign, had been a popular figure in the state for two decades. He burnished his reputation there by turning around the bribery scandal-plagued 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, making it a global showcase for Salt Lake City.

The wealthy former private equity executive, who served as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, moved to Utah after his 2012 loss to President Barack Obama. During his White House campaign, he struggled to shake the perception that he was out of touch with regular Americans. The image crystallized with his comment, secretly recorded at a fundraiser, that he didn’t worry about winning the votes of “47% of Americans” who “believe they are victims” and “pay no income tax.”

In 2016, he made his first extraordinary break with Trump, delivering a scathing speech in Utah denouncing Trump, then a presidential candidate, as “a phony, a fraud” and who was unfit to be president.

After Trump won, Romney dined with Trump to discuss Romney becoming the president-elect’s secretary of state. Trump chose Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson instead.

Romney accepted Trump’s endorsement during the primary race for his 2018 Senate run but also pledged in an op-ed that year that he would “continue to speak out when the president says or does something which is divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.”

Wisconsin GOP to pursue nonpartisan redistricting to avoid having state justices toss maps

Posted on by Associated Press

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers, in a surprise move on Tuesday, reversed their long-held position and proposed a nonpartisan redistricting plan they want to enact ahead of the 2024 election to preempt the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court from tossing the current GOP-drawn maps.

The move comes as Wisconsin justices are considering two Democratic-backed lawsuits seeking to toss the Republican maps, first enacted in 2011, that are among the most gerrymandered in the country and have helped Republicans increase their majority.

Republicans have long opposed plans put forward by Democrats to enact a nonpartisan redistricting process. But now, faced with the likelihood that the state Supreme Court was going to throw out their maps ahead of the 2024 election, Republicans are proposing enacting a new system modeled after neighboring Iowa.

“If you’re sick of the arguing, if you’re sick of the vitriol, if you want people to work together, this is a better way for us to do it,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at a news conference.

The Assembly was going to vote on the measure Thursday. It would then head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a 22-11 majority. If approved there, it would then go to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Neither Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu nor Evers immediately responded to requests for comment.

Vos said the plan offered a way to avoid two pending redistricting lawsuits and a possible impeachment fight. He and other Republicans have floated the possibility of impeachment if newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz doesn't recuse from the redistricting cases because she called the current maps “unfair” and “rigged” and accepted nearly $10 million in campaign donations from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Protasiewicz's win in April flipped majority control of the court from conservative to liberal for the first time in 15 years.

Republican support for a nonpartisan redistricting plan came days after the Wisconsin Democratic Party announced a $4 million campaign to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching Protasiewicz. A six-figure TV ad buy targeting 20 Republican lawmakers to run on Fox News was announced hours before Vos announced his plan.

At impeachment, lawyer recounts Texas AG Ken Paxton supervising his investigation into FBI and judge

Posted on by Associated Press

A junior lawyer testifying at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial said Tuesday that he kept Paxton informed through encrypted communications of every step he took in launching a criminal investigation into law enforcement officials at the behest of one of the attorney general's wealthy donors.

The testimony on the sixth day of the historic proceeding addresses a central charge against Paxton: that the Republican abused his office to help a local real estate developer resist FBI investigation by hiring an outside lawyer to look into the agents, a judge and other officials involved in the probe.

That lawyer, Brandon Cammack, told the jury of state senators who could decide Paxton's political fate within days that he consulted with the attorney general about how to proceed. Cammack also said he kept Paxton apprised as he obtained a series of grand jury subpoenas with guidance from the developer's lawyer.

“I did everything at his supervision,” Cammack said of Paxton.

Paxton has pleaded not guilty in the impeachment. He is not required to be present in the Senate for testimony and was absent Tuesday, as he has been for most of the trial. It was Paxton's hiring of Cammack in 2020 that prompted eight of his top deputies to report the attorney general to law enforcement for allegedly breaking the law to help developer Nate Paul. Their allegations prompted an FBI investigation of Paxton that remains ongoing.

That year, Paul alleged wrongdoing by state and federal authorities, including a federal judge, after the FBI searched his home. Several of Paxton's former deputies have testified for the prosecution in the impeachment trial and said they found Paul's claims “ludicrous" and not worthy of investigation.

Paul was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. He has pleaded not guilty.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers prosecuting Paxton's impeachment have alleged that in return for Paxton's help, Paul paid for renovations to his Austin home and employed a woman with whom the attorney general was having an extramarital affair.

Cammack testified Tuesday that he met several times with Paxton, Paul and Paul's lawyer about Cammack's investigation, and regularly forwarded Paxton information Paul's lawyer was sending him about whom to target with grand jury subpoenas. Cammack said Paxton used the encrypted email service Proton Mail for these communications and that the attorney general told him to communicate over encrypted messaging service Signal.

Cammack said he learned that Paxton had a different official email address when he saw it copied on an email from one of Paxton's deputies ordering Cammack to stop his investigation.

In 2020, Cammack was five years out of law school and had a modest criminal defense practice in Houston. He testified that Paxton hired him at the recommendation of Paul's lawyer, whom he said he knew socially. Cammack recalled that as he was being hired Paxton told him he would “need to have some guts” for the investigation Paxton had in mind. He said he was exited to be working for Texas' top lawyer and impressed after the attorney general took him to watch a news conference. “It was cool,” Cammack said.

Pelosi says she’ll run for reelection in 2024 as Democrats try to win back House majority

Posted on by Associated Press

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she will run for reelection to another term in Congress as Democrats work to win back the majority in 2024.

Pelosi, 83, made the announcement before labor allies in the San Francisco area district she has represented for more than 35 years.

“Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Pelosi said in a tweet. “Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection — and respectfully ask for your vote.”

First elected to Congress in 1987, the Democratic leader made history becoming the first female speaker in 2007, and in 2019 she regained the speaker's gavel.

Pelosi led the party through substantial legislative achievements, including passage of the Affordable Care Act, as well as turbulent times with two impeachments of former President Donald Trump.

The announcement quells any talk of retirement for the long-serving leader who, with the honorific title of speaker emeritus, remains an influential leader, pivotal party figure and vast fundraiser for Democrats.

Prosecutors seeking new indictment for Hunter Biden before end of September

Posted on by Associated Press

Federal prosecutors plan to seek a grand jury indictment of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter before the end of the month, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

The filing came in a gun possession case in which Hunter Biden was accused of having a firearm while being a drug user, though prosecutors did not name exactly which charges they will seek. He has also been under investigation by federal prosecutors for his business dealings.

Prosecutors under U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, newly named a special counsel in the case, said they expect an indictment before Sept. 29.

Hunter Biden's lawyers, though, argued that prosecutors are barred from filing additional charges under an agreement the two sides previously reached in the gun case. It contains an immunity clause against federal prosecutions for some other potential crimes. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said Hunter Biden has kept to the terms of the deal, including regular visits by the probation office.

“We expect a fair resolution of the sprawling, 5-year investigation into Mr. Biden that was based on the evidence and the law, not outside political pressure, and we’ll do what is necessary on behalf of Mr. Biden to achieve that,” he said in a statement.

Prosecutors have said that the gun agreement is dead along with the rest of the plea agreement that called for Hunter Biden to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses. It fell apart after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raised questions about it during a court appearance in July.

The Justice Department did not have immediate comment.

News of a possible new indictment comes as House Republicans are preparing for a likely impeachment inquiry of President Biden over unsubstantiated claims that he played a role in his son’s foreign business affairs during his time as vice president.

“If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News recently.

The younger Biden has been the target of congressional investigations since Republicans gained control of the House in January, with lawmakers obtaining thousands of pages of financial records from various members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the Treasury Department and various financial institutions. Three powerful House committees are now pursuing several lines of inquiry related to the president and his son.

And while Republicans have sought to connect Hunter Biden’s financial affairs directly to his father, they have failed to produce evidence that the president directly participated in his son’s work, though he sometimes had dinner with Hunter Biden’s clients or said hello to them on calls.

In recent months, Republicans have also shifted their focus to delving into the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden after whistleblower testimony claimed he has received special treatment throughout the yearslong case.

Hunter Biden was charged in June with two misdemeanor crimes of failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes from over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018. He had been expected to plead guilty in July, after he made an agreement with prosecutors, who were planning to recommend two years of probation. The case fell apart during the hearing after Noreika, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, raised multiple concerns about the specifics of the deal and her role in the proceedings.

If prosecutors file a new gun possession charge, it could run into court challenges. A federal appeals court in Louisiana ruled against the ban on gun possession by drug users last month, citing a 2022 gun ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

News of another indictment comes after U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss a special counsel, giving him broad authority to investigate and report out his findings and intensifying the investigation into the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.

The White House Counsel’s office referred questions to Hunter Biden’s personal attorneys.

Wisconsin Democrats combat impeachment of court justice with $4M effort

Posted on by Associated Press

The Wisconsin Democratic Party on Wednesday launched a $4 million effort to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching a new liberal state Supreme Court justice being targeted after she criticized GOP-drawn legislative electoral maps and spoke in favor of abortion rights.

After investing nearly $10 million in electing Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the effort is meant to protect what Democrats hailed as a major political victory. The judge's election tipped the balance of power in the state Supreme Court, giving Democrats the upper hand in state's fights over abortion and redistricting.

“Republicans are holding a political nuclear football,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said in reference to impeachment.

The effort will include digital and television ads, in-person voter outreach, and a website tracking where every Republican lawmaker stands on impeachment.

Protasiewicz is part of a 4-3 liberal majority on Wisconsin's Supreme Court. The escalating fight over her seat has implications for the 2024 presidential election in the battleground state. In 2020, the conservative-controlled Supreme Court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden's win in the state. More fights over election rules that will be in place for the 2024 election are pending, and any disputes over the winner could be decided once again by the state Supreme Court.

Protasiewicz began her 10-year term in August after winning her election by 11-points in April, aided with nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party. During the campaign, Protasiewicz spoke in favor of abortion rights and called GOP-drawn maps “unfair” and “rigged.”

Protasiewicz never promised to rule one way or another on redistricting or abortion cases.

Her win gave liberals a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, boosting hopes among Democrats that it will overturn the state's 1849 abortion ban, throw out the Republican maps and possibly undo a host of Republican priorities.

Unable to defeat Protasiewicz in the election, Republican lawmakers are now talking about impeaching her because of her comments during the race and her acceptance of the money from the Democratic Party.

Republicans have raised impeachment as a possibility if Protasiewicz does not recuse herself from consideration of two redistricting lawsuits filed in her first week in office last month. The GOP-controlled Legislature asked for her to step aside from the cases.

Protasiewicz on Tuesday gave attorneys until Sept. 18 to react to the fact that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which investigates complaints against judges, dismissed complaints against her alleging her campaign comments on redistricting violated the state judicial code.

A lawsuit in a county court seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban was filed before Protasiewicz won the election. That case is expected to eventually reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Wikler said Tuesday that impeaching Protasiewicz would be “an absolute political, moral and constitutional disaster" that would “rewrite our system of government, to rip away what the founders intended, to rip away the principle of co-equal branches of government and replace it with an autocracy of the Legislature.”

He said the state party was joining with other as-yet-unnamed groups in a $4 million public relations campaign to pressure Republicans to back down.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming dismissed the effort, saying Democrats were trying to "divert attention away from the hyper-partisan and wildly inappropriate prejudgements of Janet Protasiewicz.”

The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 65-34 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. It would take only 50 votes to impeach. It takes 22 votes to convict in the Senate, the exact number of seats Republicans hold.

If the Assembly impeaches her, Protasiewicz would be barred from any duties as a justice until the Senate acted. That could effectively stop her from voting on redistricting without removing her from office and creating a vacancy that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would fill.

If there is a vacancy before December, that would trigger another Supreme Court election on the same date as Wisconsin's presidential primary in April 2024.

The far-right justices on Wisconsin's Supreme Court just can't handle the fact that liberals now have the majority for the first time in 15 years, so they're in the throes of an ongoing meltdown—and their tears are delicious. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," co-hosts David Nir and David Beard drink up all the schadenfreude they can handle as they puncture conservative claims that their progressive colleagues are "partisan hacks" (try looking in the mirror) or are breaking the law (try reading the state constitution). Elections do indeed have consequences!

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