Lazar enters Supreme Court race, drawing partisan fire

With a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court guaranteed no matter who wins next spring’s open seat, much of the state’s attention has shifted toward the all-important governor’s race, but that doesn’t mean the high court campaign will be a sleepy affair, especially with appellate judge Maria Lazar jumping in this week.

Lazar, a court of appeals judge from Waukesha, is the only announced conservative running for the seat now held by conservative justice Rebecca Bradley, who opted not to run for re-election. Her entry sets up a clash with Dane County judge Chris Taylor, one of the court’s most outspoken progressives.

In her announcement, Lazar cast herself as a candidate who would halt what she called the ongoing “destruction of our courts.” In a launch video released last week, she promised to restore impartiality and justice to the state’s judiciary and to position herself as an independent arbiter determined to make common-sense decisions based on the rule of law rather than on advancing partisan goals.

“We need to draw a line in the sand and stop the destruction of our courts, especially our state Supreme Court,” Lazar said. “I am an independent, impartial judge who strives to follow the law and constitution in every decision I make from the bench. It is time to restore that level of judicial dedication to the court.”

Lazar brings with her a long resume in law. In 2015, she was elected to the Waukesha County circuit court, where she served for seven years before moving to the appellate court. She previously worked as an assistant attorney general at the Wisconsin Department of Justice and spent more than two decades in private practice. 

She and her husband, Tom, live in Waukesha County, where they raised two children, a son who is now a computer programmer and a daughter pursuing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering.

While her candidacy is meant to bolster the right wing of the court after Bradley’s exit, Lazar’s campaign will face a steep climb. Even if she does win, conservatives will still be consigned to a 4-3 minority, having merely replaced one of their own. A Taylor victory, by contrast, would boost the progressive margin to 5–2, cementing a liberal court for years to come.

The announcement comes amid a long period of political polarization in Wisconsin’s high court races.

Two years ago, progressive justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly in a campaign in which more than $50 million was expended. Her win captured the court’s majority for liberals for the first time in 15 years, immediately altering the state’s political landscape. 

Within months, lawsuits challenging Wisconsin’s alleged gerrymandering of legislative districts and the state’s 1849 abortion ban were filed. The justices are also expected to weigh in on the future of Act 10, the 2011 law that effectively ended most public-sector collective bargaining, after a Dane County judge struck down part of the law in 2024. 

Before that, in 2019, justice Brian Hagedorn narrowly won a seat as a conservative, though he has since become a swing vote on the bench, often siding with liberals in key rulings. That has further complicated the equation for conservatives.

That history all but guarantees that Lazar’s campaign will be met with massive outside spending by progressive alliances. Because of the governor’s race, the inability of conservatives to win recent Supreme Court elections, not to mention the guaranteed majority the left will have on the court, it’s unclear just how much money Republicans and conservatives will mobilize for Lazar.

Blazing guns

The moment Lazar announced, Democrats and progressive groups lit up the airwaves and flooded inboxes with withering denunciations.

Chris Taylor’s campaign manager, Ashley Franz, said Lazar would be “the most extreme member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court” should she prevail.

“Just like Rebecca Bradley, Maria Lazar has spent her career rolling back people’s rights, attacking reproductive health care and voting rights, and doing the bidding of powerful special interests and her billionaire friends,” Franz said. “It’s no surprise that she’s backed by the same right-wing billionaires who tried unsuccessfully to buy a seat on our supreme court this last April, which Wisconsinites overwhelmingly rejected.”

Franz said Bradley stepped aside because she knew Wisconsinites would reject her extreme record, and she noted that it was the same record Lazar had mirrored in her career. 

“As an attorney, public servant, and judge, Chris Taylor has always worked to bring people together and protect the fundamental rights of every Wisconsinite,” she said. “She understands that the courts should be accountable to the people, not push a personal political agenda. That’s why she has earned the support of more than 100 current and retired judges, the majority of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, and thousands of Wisconsinites.”

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin joined in the criticism, saying Republicans had “traded in Rebecca Bradley for Maria Lazar, a candidate who is just as partisan and would continue to try to rig the law against Wisconsinites just as Bradley has.”

Party spokesman Philip Shulman argued that Lazar would restrict abortion rights, undermine democracy, and “hurt working families.” 

“Rebecca Bradley knew her record was too extreme and toxic to be successful in this race, and that’s exactly why Maria Lazar will be rejected by Wisconsinites,” Shulman said. “Similar to the right-wing candidates for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court that [Democrats] have helped defeat in recent years, we’re going to make sure Wisconsinites know Maria Lazar has a partisan agenda.”

Democratic-aligned organizations wasted no time in tagging Lazar with the same extremist label. A Better Wisconsin Together accused Lazar of being the new “standard bearer” for right-wing special interests. 

“Maria Lazar embodies right-wing extremism and the willingness to sell us out to the wealthy and to powerful political special interests that Wisconsinites have time and again rejected,” the group said in a statement. “As Wisconsinites we value our freedom and demand justices on our state high court who will work for us, not the wealthy elite, the politically connected, or the extreme right-wing.”

Lazar’s record has repeatedly shown how she’s chosen “them over us,” much like Rebecca Bradley, the group continued. 

“Maria Lazar embodies right-wing extremism and the willingness to sell us out to the wealthy and to powerful political special interests that Wisconsinites have time and again rejected,” the group said.

Democrats also began laying out a longer indictment of her record: defending the GOP’s Act 10 collective bargaining restrictions, ruling against minority education scholarship grants, and drawing endorsements from anti-abortion organizations and by an out-of-state dark money group.

The Democrats said Lazar had even “given talks to the Federalist Society.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.