Wis. court race brings surge of pro-worker voters, but late tally favors conservative incumbent

TEACHERS, NURSES, FIREFIGHTERS, students, and others who objected to Wis. Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attempt to deny public sector workers collective bargaining rights spearheaded an inspiring state-wide effort to oust conservative Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. Their success in bringing out the vote for his opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, was remarkable — but it may not have been enough.

In the Feb. 15 primary, he got twice as many votes as she did. But after Walker used his budget as an excuse to attack unions, her poll numbers shot up significantly. On April 5, more than 1.5 million Wisconsin voters split almost evenly between them.

For a while it looked as though Kloppenburg would pull out a narrow victory. But two days after the election, Waukesha County, a conservative stronghold, reported that they had misreported their vote tallies. Their new totals put David Prosser ahead by about 7,500 votes.

There will no doubt be a recount, and the lead could change again, but whatever the final result, Kloppenburg owes much of her comeback to fired-up workers across the state who worked tirelessly to deliver the vote. Voter turnout was about 60 percent — triple what had been projected based on past special elections.

Candidates for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court do not declare parties, but Prosser is strongly supported by Republicans and conservative groups like the Club for Growth and the Association of Manufacturers and Commerce. Kloppenburg is supported by Democrats and unions.

High court candidates are restricted to spending no more than $300,000 to get elected, but third-party groups are not restricted. Several news sources have reported outside groups have spent more than $3.5 million in this election and estimate the total may be as high as $5 million, once all the expenditures can be counted. That figure greatly exceeds the $3.38 million spent in a 2008 Wisconsin Supreme Court contest, when conservative Michael Gableman became the first challenger in over 40 years to defeat an incumbent high court judge.

Walker's Replacement Is Defeated

WORKERS HAD MORE success defeating Walker's hand-picked successor for his previous position as Milwaukee County Executive. By a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent, Chris Abele (D) crushed state Rep. Jeff Stone (R), who twice voted for Walker's bill to eliminate collective bargaining for public workers. In his campaign, Abele used those two votes to tar his opponent as anti-worker.

Last month at a joint campaign appearance, Abele was asked how he differed from Gov. Walker. He answered that he believes in collective bargaining rights for all workers, saying that he knew “from personal experience as a manager” that cooperation through bargaining works well. He told a story about how the Milwaukee Symphony weathered a major economic crisis because they were able to implement cost-saving ideas that came from the union. The collective bargaining process actually made them stronger.