Races heat up for Abrahamson’s seat, 3 state court judgeships

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As Tuesday’s general election approaches, the state’s judicial races are heating up. This year, there are four contested races and 29 uncontested races.

Headlining ballots across the state is the race between District 2 Court of Appeals Judges Brian Hagedorn and Lisa Neubauer. Whoever wins will replace Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who is part of the court’s liberal-leaning minority.

Hagedorn, who earned his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 2006, was appointed to the Court of Appeals by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2015.

Before that, Hagedorn had spent four years as Walker’s chief legal counsel and a year as a law clerk for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.

Hagedorn also worked as an assistant attorney general and attorney at Foley & Lardner.

Hagedorn recently won re-election in 2017, and his seat is up for election in 2023.

Neubauer, who earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1979, is also the chief judge for the state Court of Appeals.

She has served on the Court of Appeals bench since 2007, when she was appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle. Before her appointment to the bench, Neubauer was a partner and litigation attorney at Foley & Lardner and a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb.

Her seat on the Court of Appeals is up for election in 2020.

Should either be elected to the high court, Gov. Tony Evers will most likely appoint someone to finish out the rest of the term.

Both have been running campaign advertisements. Hagedorn’s first television ad started airing in February, calling attention to his adoption of a girl addicted to opioids. Neubauer’s ad, which is mainly about her judicial endorsements and time on the Court of Appeals, started running in March.

Soon after Neubauer released her ad, a group founded by ex-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced it would give $350,000 to two groups that are working to get Neubauer elected.

Outside groups so far plan to spend more than $400,000 to support either candidate, according to a March report from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks election spending.

Although the race is officially non-partisan, Hagedorn is backed by conservative groups; Neubauer’s backing comes from liberal groups, including Planned Parenthood.

Hagedorn recently made headlines for founding a Christian private school where students can be expelled if they are gay. Afterward, the Wisconsin Realtors Association revoked its endorsement of Hagedorn and asked for its $18,000 donation to be returned.

It was also reported that Hagedorn has a decades-old blog post from his days as a law student in which he wrote that a U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law could lead to the legalization of bestiality.

Hagedorn, an evangelical Christian, has argued that he has been unfairly attacked over his religious beliefs and that he would be a fair and impartial justice on the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Neubauer has revealed the role she played as an unnamed plaintiff in a successful lawsuit brought in the 1970s against the Chicago police after she was strip-searched but not arrested. At the time, she was a 21-year-old college student and had come to the police station to find a friend who had been arrested while the two of them were at a concert.

The three other contested races are in Milwaukee, Racine and Ozaukee counties.

In Ozaukee County, a Milwaukee attorney and Grafton attorney are vying for the seat on Branch 2 held by Judge Joseph Voiland, who chose not to run again.

Angela Foy, a shareholder at Halling & Cayo in Milwaukee, and Cain, a partner at Stippich, Selin & Cain in Cedarburg, made the cut in the Feb. 19 primary.

Foy came out on top with 2,771 votes, claiming 34.1 percent of the total vote, according to certified elections results from Wisconsin Election Commission. Cain came in second with 2,727 votes, which was about 33.6 percent of the total vote.

The primary whittled down the field of candidates. Out are attorney Mark Larson, a shareholder and civil defense attorney at Gutglass, Erickson, Bonville & Larson in Milwaukee, and James Wawrzyn, a business attorney at von Briesen in Milwaukee.

In Milwaukee County, the race for Branch 40 is pitting a former Husch Blackwell attorney against an assistant state public defender.

Then-Gov. Scott Walker in August appointed Andrew Jones to the position after Rebecca Dallet was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court last spring. Before that, Jones had been a partner in Husch Blackwell’s office, where he advised companies, government entities and people on constitutional, employment-compliance, land-use and litigation matters. Before that, he was assistant corporation counsel for the New York City Law Department.

Shelton announced in May that she would be running against Jones. She is an assistant state public defender in the State Public Defender’s Milwaukee Trial Division and earned her law degree in 2003 from Marquette University Law School. She has also worked for Legal Action of Wisconsin and served in the Army.

In Racine County, solo practitioner Jamie McClendon is challenging Judge Jon Fredrickson for his seat on the bench.

Then-Gov. Scott Walker in September appointed Fredrickson to replace Judge John Constantine, who retired. Before his appointment, Fredrickson, who earned his law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1999, was a civil litigator at the Milwaukee firm Kravit Hovel & Krawczyk. Previously, he was an associate and law clerk at the Milwaukee firm Crivello Carlson.

McClendon announced in November her plans to challenge Fredrickson.

She started her Racine practice in 2017, after working for years as a public defender in Racine and Ozaukee counties.

McClendon also worked for the state Department of Transportation’s Equal Rights Office. She earned her law degree from Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Arizona State University in Phoenix in 2007 and has been admitted to practice law in Wisconsin since 2010.