Candidates for Supreme Court have low-key day (UPDATE)

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By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court had a low-key election eve on the campaign trail Monday, and turnout wasn’t expected to top single digits for the nonpartisan primary that has attracted little attention.

Unlike the all-out, last-ditch efforts candidates often use to sway voters during the last day of campaigning, there was little activity from the three candidates seeking to advance to the April 2 general election to determine who is elected to a 10-year term.

Ed Fallone was teaching a class Monday at Marquette University law school, where he works as a professor, and Milwaukee consumer law attorney Vince Megna planned to attend the funeral of a friend.

Incumbent Justice Pat Roggensack was personally calling supporters and doing radio interviews before an evening fundraiser. Roggensack is the only one of the three who ran television ads before the primary.

The Supreme Court race is the only statewide contest on the ballot, although there are a number of other local elections.

In the Milwaukee area, five Republicans are running for an open spot in the state Assembly. There are no Democrats in that race, so whichever Republican wins the primary will likely take the seat barring an unforeseen write-in campaign.

Roggensack is seeking a second term and she’s focused her campaign on her nearly 17-years’ experience as a judge.

“We feel very good, very positive,” said her campaign adviser Brandon Scholz. “We’ve had a very positive message.”

Given that turnout is predicted to be so low, Scholz said Roggensack planned on Monday to stop in at phone banks where volunteers were reaching out to voters to remind them of the election.

Megna said when he talked with his accountant on Monday he didn’t even realize the election was Tuesday. Megna tried to shake up on the officially nonpartisan race, declaring that he was a Democrat and encouraging the other candidates to do the same and take stands on issues. Neither of them did.

Megna said he had no idea what to expect Tuesday.

“I just don’t know,” Megna said. “We’re just going to have to see.”

After teaching his class Monday, Fallone planned to call voters, said his campaign spokesman Nate Schwantes.

“We’re doing our best to communicate with voters to make sure they know there is an election, which is a challenge,” Schwantes said.

Both Megna and Fallone have argued that Roggensack doesn’t deserve another term on the bench because of high profile conflicts among current justices, most notably when Justice David Prosser put his hands around the neck of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley during an argument in 2011.

Roggensack has countered that she, not the entire court, is up for election. She also argues that the seven justices get along better than most people realize.

Roggensack is generally viewed as being part of a four-justice conservative majority on the officially nonpartisan court.

Her supporters include the Milwaukee police and firefighter unions; Wisconsin Right to Life; former state Supreme Court Justices William Callow, Louis Ceci, Donald Steinmetz and Jon Wilcox; more than 100 judges; more than 50 county sheriffs; and two dozen county attorneys.

Fallone has received the support of a variety of unions across Wisconsin, including the state AFL-CIO; the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of Teachers; the Service Employees International Union; and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the statewide teachers union.

Megna, who announced he was no longer accepting or soliciting campaign donations since January, lists endorsements from three individuals on his campaign website: Michael Skwierawski, retired chief judge for Milwaukee County; DeVonna Joy, a lawyer and owner of the Consumer Justice Law Center in Muskego; and Rosemary Shahan, an auto consumer advocate and president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety which is based in California.