River News: Our View

We won’t be so dramatic as to say that Tuesday’s elections for state Supreme Court and state superintendent of education are the most important elections of our lifetime. That certainly is not the case.

Nor will we be so dramatic as to suggest that your life depends on the outcomes. No one is going to drop dead because of who wins, outside of a few wealthy donors and big spenders on the losing side. George Soros especially should beware if Schimel wins. Age, you know.

On the other hand, your way of life could very well be imperiled depending on the results, and that’s why everyone should get out and vote Tuesday if you have not already done so.

Your pocketbook, your ability to avoid union membership, the possibility of sending your child to the school of your choice without sacrificing public aid, your ability to use a bathroom restricted to your biological sex instead of having to use non-gendered bathrooms like the ones that horrify diners in many Madison restaurants — all of these and more could and likely will be likely affected.

In the Supreme Court election, former Republican attorney general and Waukesha circuit judge Brad Schimel is facing progressive Dane County circuit judge Susan Crawford. It should be no surprise to anyone that electing a Dane County judge to the state’s highest court, which would preserve the progressives’ 4-3 majority, would lead to even bigger changes than the current radical court has already engaged in.

The court would continue to be a policy- and lawmaking entity, usurping the legislature’s rightful role.

As we report today, Schimel has already served notice on Wisconsin residents about what will happen if Crawford delivers the court to progressive extremists: the court will end parental rights, overturn right-to-work, remove voter ID, force biological men into girls’ bathrooms, declare school choice unconstitutional; and toss out Act 10, which prohibits most public sector collective bargaining.

So, some might ask, just how do we know that the court will do any of these things if Crawford wins?

That’s easy. Justice Janet Protasiewicz campaigned on doing many of those things, or she made statements about her positions on most of those issues, and the other liberal justices wholeheartedly supported her. Look at their backgrounds, and you can see where a progressive court is going.

Well, others might ask, why haven’t the progressives who currently have that majority already done all these things?

That’s easy, too. The majority has deliberately refrained from bringing most hot-button issues to the table before the spring election. They did so because the public likes those things the progressive court is trying to get rid of and they feared a backlash against Crawford if they went whole hog before the election.

For example, Act 10 has saved taxpayers billions of dollars as well as removed children and schools from the clutches of teachers unions. But if Crawford wins, get ready for all those changes and more: The Progressives are coming. The Progressives are coming.

Over in the state superintendent’s race, newcomer education consultant Brittany Kinser is taking on current superintendent Jill Underly.

Underly is a progressive mess, and inept on top if it. She even drew the ire of Gov. Tony Evers when she lowered standards for state test scores — to below national standards. She is so bad that the once-powerful teachers’ union declined to support her in the three-way February primary, though most of the Democratic establishment is on board.

For her part, Kinser is a moderate Democrat who supports school choice and has used choice as a closing theme in her campaign ads. If Kinser wins, expect a refreshing recommitment to school choice around the state; if she loses, expect DPI to double down on its efforts to kill both choice and parental involvement in education.

This might not be the most important election of your life, and it won’t kill you if you don’t vote.

But we won’t say the same thing about your way of life. 

If progressives have their way, things will be way worse than in the old days, when Wisconsin was a huge tax-and-spend state. It would very soon be a huge tax-and-spend-and-woke state, a state running the wrong way as the rest of the nation corrects course toward sanity.

Only your vote can stop this.