March 2, 2015 at 4:53 p.m.
High court, high stakes: A look at the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court
High court, high stakes: A look at the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court
Both have endorsements from the usual players: district attorneys, sheriffs, fellow judges. Both tout bipartisan support. Both are traveling furiously to shake as many hands as possible before polls close on April 7.
In anticipation of the election, The Lakeland Times interviewed Bradley and Daley. Pertinent excerpts of those interviews are published below. The candidates talked about their backgrounds, how they decide cases and salient issues in the race.
Bradley and Daley also chimed in about a constitutional amendment referendum on April's ballot. The question: whether the state constitution should be amended to change how the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is selected. At present, the chief justice is whoever has served on the court the longest. Under the proposed amendment, the chief justice would be selected by a majority vote of the justices.
Candidate biography
Bradley
Ann Walsh Bradley grew up in Richland Center, a city in southwestern Wisconsin. It was there, she said, where she was instilled with values of family, fairness, hard work and service to others.
"That's who I am," she said. "That's what I am about."
She received a bachelor's degree from Webster University in St. Louis, and briefly taught high school in Eau Claire and La Crosse before enrolling in law school at the University of Wisconsin.
After graduating law school, she practiced law in Wausau, where she and her husband, Mark, raised four kids. (Mark, also an attorney, is from Antigo.)
In 1985, Bradley was elected to the Marathon County Circuit Court. A decade later, she beat out four other contenders for an open seat on the state Supreme Court, and she won re-election in 2005.
She is the second-most-senior justice on the court.
Daley
James Daley was born in the city of Elkhorn, in southeastern Wisconsin. He graduated from Waukesha's Carroll College in 1977 and received a law degree from Marquette University in 1981.
He was Rock County district attorney for three terms before former Gov. Tommy Thompson appointed him to the circuit court in 1989. He has won re-election to the bench five times in Rock County.
Daley has been the presiding judge there since 1998, during which time he has created three diversion courts, including the state's first veterans diversion court. In 2013, the state Supreme Court also appointed him chief judge of the Fifth Judicial District, the court's regional administrative body covering Dane, Green, Lafayette and Rock counties.
Daley also has 36 years of military experience, including service in Vietnam. He retired from the Wisconsin Army National Guard as a brigadier general.
"I bring a wide range of experience to the table," he said.
Daley and his wife, Shirley, have four daughters.
Judicial philosophy: How cases are decided
Bradley
"We of course start with the constitution - federal and state - the statutes and then our precedent," Bradley said. "That's how we decide cases."
She added: "I really to my core believe that when I am sitting there, I'm standing up for the constitution. I'm standing up for the rule of law, which means I'm standing up for the people of Wisconsin. I really believe that."
Daley
"I'm running because I am a constitutionalist," Daley said. "In other words, I believe that a judge's role, a justice's role, is to apply the constitution and the rule of law to the questions before them, and the role of the justice does not include using my own personal beliefs and acting on my own personal beliefs to overrule the policy decisions of another branch of government. That's legislating from the bench."
What qualities make a good judge
Bradley
"People have to have trust and confidence in the judiciary," Bradley said. "What gives the judicial branch our legitimacy is trust and confidence. Unlike the legislative branch, the power of the purse, unlike the executive branch, which under our constitution has the power of the militia, the power of enforcement. All we have is public trust and confidence. That's our currency. That's what gives us legitimacy. And people want to know that when they go to court, they get a fair shake. They don't want a judge with an agenda. They don't want a judge who's beholden to any special interest group or association large or small. That's what I stand for."
Daley
"Being able to divorce your decisions from your own personal beliefs and belief systems and partisan politics, and apply the rule of the law and the constitution to your decision," Daley said. "Whether you agree with the policy decision or not by the Legislature, it is not my role to act as a super-Legislature and exchange my policy beliefs for the Legislature's."
What issues are important to voters?
Bradley
Bradley said voters have consistently voiced concern about partisan politics and the role of money in judicial elections - issues she has address-ed in prior campaigns.
Asked what she specifically meant by partisan politics, Bradley gave an example:
"Earlier this week I was talking with a friend of mine who's a sheriff. And he said to me, Justice, you know when they call 9-1-1, we don't ask 'is this a Republican or a Democrat calling?' And I responded to him, 'you know when people file cases, whether it's in the circuit court level or in the Supreme Court, we don't ask, is it being filed by a Republican or is it being filed by a Democrat?' The reality is people will look and certainly have a wide group of supporters, as we do. But I believe in a strong bipartisan support."
Daley
Daley said members of the law enforcement and business communities have expressed concern about uncertainty and instability in the law caused by the state Supreme Court.
"The changing of the tests used to judge the laws have been confounding and uncertainty is bad for business and it's certainly bad for law enforcement," Daley said.
If elected, Daley said he would fix that problem. Voters, he said, "know that I'm going to apply the rule of law and the constitution, and will not ever overturn the will of the people in Wisconsin on behalf of my own personal beliefs, and they like that."
Whether judges should be elected or appointed
Bradley
There are strengths and weaknesses in both electing judges and appointing them, according to Bradley. However, she said, neither method totally insulates the judicial selection process from politics.
She also asserted that money from out-of-state special interests have made elections more challenging.
"Which is better?" Bradley asked, referring to electing versus appointing judges. "To me that's an academic question because in Wisconsin we are going to continue to elect our judges. That's what people do here. So the challenge for me is: how do we make our system of selection better?"
Daley
Daley prefers electing judges, which he said keeps the selection process properly within "the hands of the people." Switching to a system in which judges are regularly appointed would move the judicial selection process to "the backrooms of backroom deals, which is not in view by the public," he added.
"I like democracy," Daley said. "People elect and can un-elect if they choose they don't like the way the justice votes or their personal philosophy. I think it's important we have the ability for the people of this state to make a decision to remove them also. No, I like democracy."
On constitutional amendment to change how chief justice is selected
Bradley
Bradley said she does not support the proposed amendment because she believes it is politically motivated and targeted against Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.
"I don't think it's necessarily about good government," Bradley said. "I think it's using the constitution as a tool for political payback."
Bradley added, however, that she is not necessarily opposed to the underlying merits of the measure, noting that different states have different methods of choosing chief justices.
Daley
Daley said he supports the proposed amendment, plain and simple.
"I call it democracy," Daley said. "I can see no reason why the justices of the Supreme Court shouldn't be able select their own chief justice by a vote of the justices. That's basic democracy, and I like it."
Local endorsements
Bradley
Oneida County Circuit Judge Michael Bloom
Vilas County Circuit Judge Neal (Chip) Nielson
Daley
Oneida County Sheriff Grady Hartman
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