You ready? Yep.
Thank you.
And you get that hand clap on it.
No, you do it.
Sorry.
Ready? Yep.
That was actually Governor Walker's
favorite thing to do was that
once he learned the single thing.
He wanted to do it.
Yeah, he really thought that was
fun. Like he got into TV.
Yeah, I think that was his next
sideline. Yeah.
He was already heavily into radio.
Yeah. Okay.
Because he called. He like, he had
the private number.
So any time when he was Milwaukee
County. Exactly.
If he had something he wanted to
say, just call up the studios
and he would put them on. Yeah.
Just like just put them
right in there.
Pretty much. He had the red
line. The red line.
Okay. We're good.
Good. All right.
Judge Crawford, thank you so much
for giving us this time.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be
here.
Let's start with your judicial
philosophy.
How would you define it and what
does it mean to you?
Yeah.
You know, I view myself
as a really common sense judge.
So I focus on, first of all, making
sure that I know what the facts are
in any case.
I've listened to the evidence and
just determine what the truth is.
I think that's a really important
first step for any judge.
And then, of course, I make sure I
get the law right after listening to
the lawyers tell me
what their positions are.
And then I have to make
a decision after I have
those two things established.
And I pay a lot of attention
to how my decision
is going to impact the people in
a case.
The decisions I make are not
abstract principles.
They are going to affect real
people's lives.
So I do pay close
attention to the context of my
decisions.
And taking that up to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, I will
also consider
how the decisions that
I'm involved in as a justice will
be applied in future cases,
because at the Supreme Court level,
those cases are precedent and you
have to think ahead to other
applications.
For the general public that doesn't
have a lot of interaction with the
legal system.
They've kind of developed the the
shorthand of judicial, conservative
or judicial liberal.
And that's how I think we defined
the breakdown in the Supreme Court.
How would you define the distinction
between those two categories, if
there is one?
You know, I think that kind of
shorthand is actually not that
useful.
What I do is
just try to be fair and impartial in
every case and apply the
law to the facts
that I've determined to be true in
the way that
does justice and protects
the interests in the case.
The people in the case law, the way
the law was intended.
So let's look at some history.
Recent history in the Supreme Court.
There's been a lot of overturning of
precedent recently, both at the
national and at the state level.
What are the factors that you would
look at when you decide to overturn
case history?
Yeah. Well, I have not been
in a position to do that, of course,
because I'm currently a circuit
court judge.
And on the circuit court.
We are required to
apply precedent.
I think that as a justice
on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, what
I would do, first of all, if
asked to overturn question
precedent, is to consider
what the attorneys arguments are
in favor or against doing
so.
You know, typically, justices are
not coming to that conclusion on
their own.
They're doing it because one of the
parties in the case is asking
them to overturn a prior precedent
on grounds that it was wrongly
decided.
So the first thing I would do
in a particular case is determine
how I think the law ought to be
applied in that case.
And often
there's not a need to actually
overturn a precedent, but
rather to distinguish it to
say, well, there are some different
facts in that case, and maybe it
should be applied more narrowly
or there
is an exception that can be made in
this new case.
So I think it's a rare
instance where a precedent actually
has to be overturned.
But, you know, I would do the same
thing I just described.
I would look at the facts of the
case, listen to
the legal arguments on
the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
I would certainly listen to what my
fellow justices had to say and
what their positions were before
making an important decision
like that to actually overturn a
precedent.
In a couple of recent cases
regarding redistricting, at least
with the least change factor.
And also drop boxes there to
overrule some recent precedent.
Does it make a difference how long
the precedents been there?
Well, I don't think it does
necessarily.
I think it's a factor, but it
is certainly not the only
factor and probably not the
most important one that I'd be
looking at and making such a
decision.
And then how do you contrast that to
something like the Dobbs decision,
which obviously overturned a major
long standing?
Right. Right.
Well, you know, I think the Dobbs
case was wrongly decided, and
it represents the first time,
to my knowledge, that the United
States Supreme Court has.
However undone a
long standing, constitutionally
vested right recognized
under our US Constitution.
And I think that the case
was poorly reasoned
by the majority
on the Supreme Court, and that's
very well laid out in the dissent
to that case.
Obviously, abortion rights,
access to abortion in Wisconsin,
going through the court systems
before Wisconsin Supreme Court now.
But when voters are
thinking of this race, should be
they thinking of individual cases
like Rowe v Wade or Dobbs or or
issues when they're deciding their
justice or should they be looking
more broadly?
I think that voters should be
paying attention to both.
I think they should be looking at
the candidates and what they bring
to the race.
So, you know, I'm somebody who has
a history
as first working as a prosecutor,
then in private practice, working
in our courts to represent
ordinary Wisconsinites, when
often when the government had taken
rights away from them, standing up
for them.
And now as a circuit court
judge. So I have very broad
experience, both handling
the toughest felony cases in front
of our Wisconsin Supreme Court
and standing up for Wisconsinites
to protect their rights in
our circuit courts and again, all
the way to the Wisconsin Supreme
Court. So I think it's important for
voters to know that
and contrast that with my opponent,
who has a career as a partizan
politician, has run for
Partizan Office something like five
times and is running
his campaign for this office
very much as if it were a Partizan
campaign, taking positions
on cases pending before the
Wisconsin Supreme Court, which
show that he's biased and not
impartial.
I've pledged to be fair
and impartial as a justice on the
Supreme Court.
I am not saying how I would decide
any case that's currently
pending before that court or on
the way potentially to the Supreme
Court. So I do encourage voters
to look at what
I'm bringing to the race overall.
And there are also voters who care
very much about specific
issues and reproductive health
care. Abortion rights is one of
those issues.
And I
you know, I have talked openly about
the fact that I think that Dobbs was
wrongly decided.
And that's why we now have all
these cases coming to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court.
It's required that
we relitigate those issues.
And I have
worked in the past to protect
women's reproductive health care
rights as a lawyer in our
courtrooms.
Contrast that with my opponent,
Brad Schimel, who has been a long
time opponent in a very
extreme way to abortion
rights, has openly said
while campaigning for this office
that he supports an 1849
law that he thinks should be
enforced as a criminal ban on
just about all abortions in
Wisconsin.
So for voters who care about that
issue, I think they should be
considering what each
candidate brings and what their
experiences and they've had to say
about it.
Bradshaw Mills Partizan
history as a candidate is well
documented right next to his name
on every election.
But you've worked in Democratic
administrations, both the attorney
general and the governor's office.
And in private practice, you have
argued cases on behalf of
issues that align with the
Democratic Party.
And he argues that you are just as
partizan, Leo.
How do you respond to that?
Well, I think he's wrong.
He I have never been involved in
Partizan Politics either as a
candidate or with any involvement
personally at either the county
or state or national level in
Partizan Politics.
That's Brad Jamal's whole career.
And again, he
you know, he betrays his partizan
roots by taking
positions on
every case that is pending
just about in front of the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, telling
folks how he would decide them
in a way that is, you know,
he's prejudging those cases.
That's very prejudicial to the
parties in those cases, particularly
when he, I believe,
is making those decisions based on
what he reads in the newspaper and
not on the
evidence in those cases or
the legal arguments of the parties
or any deliberations,
obviously, with other justices on
the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So there's a very sharp contrast in
how we are approaching
this race.
I'm approaching it as a judge, and
I want to be a good, fair,
impartial, common sense justice
for the people of Wisconsin.
Brad Schimmel is approaching
it as if it was a partizan race
and says he wants to get on the
Supreme Court to help conservatives
win elections
in 2023.
Janet policy, which talked about her
values when she was
running and that brought a new
attention and a new approach to.
As opposed to prior candidates in
that race.
Do you think it was appropriate for
her to talk about her values?
Are you wanting to talk about your
values?
How does that reframe the public's
expectation of a candidate for
this office?
Yeah. Well, I think, first of all,
that Janet, proud to say with it's
is a real asset
to the Supreme Court.
I think she is doing a great job.
And I think that she also
handled herself well in
her campaign.
You know, this is a different race.
And I,
I want voters to get to know me
and get to know who I am and
what kind of justice they can
expect me to be.
On the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So there are appropriate ways
for candidates for the Wisconsin
Supreme Court or any court to talk
about their experience,
what they worked for and
their values.
And I will do that.
But I will stop short
of taking a position on
any case in or
likely to be in the Wisconsin
Supreme Court.
I think that's improper
and again, is prejudging
cases, is prejudicial
to the parties and unfortunately is
what my opponent's doing.
Let's talk a little bit about
Justice Brian Hagedorn.
In the past, he's taken a lot of
heat from conservatives who felt he
wasn't conservative enough.
There have been a lot of Democrats
or liberals that have felt that he
is kind of pulling the middle and
judging each case as it should be.
He most recently recused himself
from potential Act ten case.
He held a position in the Walker
administration that was similar to
the one that you held in the Doyle
administration.
What are your thoughts on Brian
Hagedorn both as a justice and in
terms of recusal and his prior
role versus how you might be
on the Supreme Court?
Well, I looked at the order
that he issued when he decided
to recuse from the Act ten case.
And what he said is
that he helped draft that law
and that he also had
helped to defend in a previous
legal challenge in federal
court to the exact
provision of the part
of Act ten that's now at stake
in this new case that is
potentially at least heading to the
Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So for him
having taken a position already on
that exact provision and
trying to defend it in court,
I think he made the right decision
to recuse himself.
And, you know, if I had been
in exactly that situation
as Justice Hagedorn is, I
think I would have made the same
decision.
How do you view his role on the
court?
Well, he as you said, he
is a justice
who sometimes
aligns himself with
what people would consider the more
liberal majority, sometimes with the
more conservative majority.
And
I think that
any justice on the Supreme Court
should approach cases
not based on how
their friends are voting or how or
how any bloc on the court
is voting. But based on their
independent view about
what needs to happen in the case.
And that's that's how I intend
to
participate as a justice on the
Supreme Court.
I am not
going to be
trying to
align myself with
other justices.
I think there are other justices on
the court who whose
judicial philosophies and approaches
is closer to mine than others.
But it's it's a case by case
determination.
And that's how I intend to handle
myself.
In private practice.
You also were part of an Act ten
lawsuit. Yes. Would that prevent
you from signing
any cases regarding Act ten in
the future?
You know, if a case came
up, whether it's on Act
ten or anything else, that
any other topic that I
had some role in in in challenging
while I was lawyer I would give it a
very close look to
see what the facts were that were
presented in that new case,
who the parties were and
what kind of legal issues are being
raised, and make a determination
about whether I could be fair and
impartial sitting on that case.
That's what the law requires us to
do, and that's what I do in every
case.
One of the issues in this race is
a repeat of an issue that Brad
Schimel dealt with in his reelection
campaign in 2008, and that has
to do with his handling of the rape
kits while he was the attorney
general. What's your perspective
on how he did in that and
whether it's fair to attack him?
Obviously, he's defending himself,
saying that that's an unfair attack.
Well, look, the
sexual assault kit initiative,
that getting getting those kits
identified that had not been tested
and dealing with the backlog
was an initiative that started
long before Brad Schimel took
office as a.
Attorney general started in the
previous administration under
Attorney General J.B.
Van Hollen.
And when Brad Schimmel
entered the attorney general's
office, my understanding
is that the staff who were working
on that initiative came to him and
said, look, there's this backlog of
thousands of untested
sexual assault kits and
the department needs more funding
and resources to get those tested.
And he pushed him back and
said, go look for a cheaper way to
do this, look maybe for some grant
funding.
And meanwhile, he was going to
the legislature asking
for a
new unit of attorneys called the
solicitor general's Office
that he then utilized
for the entire time he was in office
to pursue right wing lawsuits,
including trying to overturn
the Affordable Care Act, which,
if it had been successful, would
have resulted in hundreds of
thousands of Wisconsinites losing
their health insurance.
He was getting involved
in environmental litigation
in other states that had nothing
to do with Wisconsin.
The solicitor general, the person he
hired into that role, an
out-of-state attorney we
now know was meeting secretly
with conservative groups around the
country to develop the legal
strategy to overturn Roe versus
Wade, which is what ultimately
gave us the Dobbs decision.
Kicking out a 50 year,
long vested constitutional
right, protecting women's right to
access reproductive health care.
So those were Brad Kimmel's
priorities instead of
addressing this backlog of
sexual assault kids.
It is certainly an issue that
I think voters are entitled to know
something about in this race.
He got nine kids tested
in a period of two years.
And, you know, justice delayed is
justice denied.
So the crime victims in those
cases, some of the most serious
cases that
occur, did not get
justice from Brad Schimmel.
He's saying now
that he
got caught up with that backlog,
but he only put his foot on the gas
when it became an issue in his
reelection campaign.
So, again, this is Brad
Kimmel's partizanship.
His political future was at
stake and he was worried about it.
So he
started working on that backlog
and made some progress in
it. But voters saw
through it and they sent him home
and it was up to his successor
in office to get that
job completed.
One of the other issues that
regularly comes up in Supreme Court
elections has to do with prior
rulings as a judge
regarding offenders and leniency
of sentences. And they make real
easy attack ads.
How does that affect you as a as
a judge when you're handling these
cases, knowing that any decision you
can be made may be twisted or taken
out of context and used against you
in a campaign commercial?
Well, you know, I don't
make decisions as a judge based
on what I think some
future attack ad might look at.
I make decisions, particularly
in that example of criminal
sentencing based on what I believe
is necessary to protect the safety
of the community, what's necessary
to protect the crime victims in a
case.
And, you know, I
look at the nature of the offense
that was committed.
And as the
as the law instructs judges
in those kinds of cases to look at
all the relevant factors,
what the defendant's rehabilitative
needs might be, that person's
criminal prior criminal record.
And I make a decision that I believe
in the interests of justice and
will protect community safety
and protect the crime victim.
Do you think it's a possibility that
other candidates might be more
aware of potential
attack ads when they are going
through a sentencing phase?
You know, I have no idea.
To be honest.
What and, you know, I don't know
what somebody like Brad Schimel,
who's has
a long career as a partizan
politician.
It may be that that's something
that he has taken into
consideration.
But I don't want to speculate.
It's you know, I think
judges in Wisconsin,
by and large, are really
dedicated to the job and
work really hard at it
and strive to make
good decisions, the best decision
they can make in every case.
One of the other cultural
flashpoints that we're going through
as a country right now has to do
with trans rights.
In your estimation, do
trans people have any specific
protections under the law?
Are they a protected class?
Do they get any other category
of protection when it comes to
them being singled out as a group?
You know, that is a question
where if a case came in front of
me that was making
an argument about the rights of
transgender people or
making a claim that they'd been
destroyed. Terminated against or
something like that.
I would have to look at the law and
see what protections were available
and hear out what the attorneys
arguments were both
for and against those kinds
of protections.
Obviously, look at the facts to see
what was happening in that case and
then make a decision based on
what I thought the facts and the law
required.
But as of now, there's nothing
specific in state or federal law
that gives them any protected
status.
You know, I don't I don't want to
answer the answer that's this
specific question because I haven't
researched it.
And I can't make a blanket statement
that there are no such protections
without actually looking at the law
to make that determination.
There are a couple other
issues that may come before the
Supreme Court. One of them is
it. Former Supreme Court Justice
Mike Gabelman and
the attempt to try and disbar
him or penalize
him for his actions,
given that you may be sitting on
that, if it does come to the court,
what are your opinions?
What you can talk about?
Of former Justice Gabelman
and his actions have been quite
public.
Well, I think you answered that
question a little bit for me in the
way you framed it.
If if that's a case that
may end up in front of the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, it's not appropriate
for me to comment on it or take
any position on
whether or not
former Justice Gabelman should
or should not be disciplined
for the actions that he took in.
You know, I believe he was
hired by the legislature
to investigate the
results of the 2024 election, and
there is a pending case in front of
the Office of Lawyer Regulation.
Complaint was filed against him,
seeking to discipline him for some
of his conduct both in the courtroom
and generally in conducting that
investigation.
That process is going to play out.
I think it's possible it will end up
in front of the Wisconsin Supreme
Court. And if it does, and
I'm there to.
With the other justices make a
decision, I'll
do what I do in every case, which is
to take a look at what the facts
are and what the
what the law requires in that case.
In a similar category of.
Jim Troopers is also
facing felony charges for some of
his actions coming out of the 2020
election.
And the phrase lawfare
is being thrown around.
What is your perspective or
understanding of lawfare?
What it is? Is it an actual real
thing or is it kind of a made up
term?
I am sorry, I'm not familiar with
the term and I don't know how it's
being used.
In that same category.
President Donald Trump recently
issued pardons for the January
6th defendants.
What is your opinion of the
pardons and how that may play
out in law?
Yeah, well, I
first of all, the president under
the Constitution has very
broad authority to grant
pardons. It's it's
there are no limits stated in the US
Constitution for the exercise
of that authority.
But in my view,
the the pardons should be
exercised
appropriately by any president
when they believe that it advances
the interests of justice.
And in my view,
those pardons of
individuals who
stormed our nation's capital
and attacked law enforcement
officers, violently
injuring many of them,
I think those pardons were
completely inappropriate because
that did not advance the interests
of justice. And similarly,
we saw the pardon used
by outgoing President Biden
to pardon family members.
And again, I have concerns
about that because I believe
that's an exercise of the pardon
that also is not in the interests of
justice.
Switching to the campaign on
the ground, you've been going out to
a lot of counties.
What is what's the
mood like?
Because a lot of the people that are
supporting you were also supporting
Kamala Harris or Democrats last
fall.
Some of those same people you're
now asking to go out and collect.
They already have collected
signatures. But to go out and do
doorknocking and campaigns and get
involved, do they have energy?
Are they feeling good coming
off of last November or is that a
completely separate feeling?
Well, I think that immediately
after the November election, I
did send some some people
that I was talking to just being
very disappointed by the outcome
of that election.
But for events that I'm
attending now, people seem
really energized and really
enthusiastic.
They are also, I think,
nervous and afraid by.
Just a sense that rights
are under attack in our
country and feeling like they
want to do something about that.
So I am seeing a lot of
energy and a lot of enthusiasm,
and I think I'll have
a lot of help from
people all through the state in
getting the word out to voters about
how important this election is
and how important it is to
put people on our Wisconsin Supreme
Court who
have some common sense and want to
be fair and impartial and protect
Wisconsinites and not
to put somebody on our Supreme Court
who's driving an extreme partizan
agenda and has a history of taking
rights away from people.
We've seen not just 2023,
but prior to that Supreme Court
elections in Wisconsin Be becomes,
you know, swept up among the
political parties and framed through
the political rhetoric from the
public's point of view, the amount
of dollars coming in has dwarfed
anything. Setting national spending
records, is that healthy
for democracy
and for the judicial system in
Wisconsin, or is that simply a side
effect of the importance of the
race?
Maybe a little bit of both.
I think that the huge amounts
of money that are spent
on judicial campaigns is concerning.
I think the partizan tone of
these races is concerning.
And, you know, it's disappointing to
me that this this
race can't just be about
the candidates experience
and judicial philosophies.
Brad Schimel is trying to politicize
it. He has been since the
day he announced his candidacy
for the race, which was back in
November 2023.
That was he thought he was going to
be running against a different
candidate at that time because
current Justice and Walsh Bradley
had not yet announced that she was
going to retire.
But he said right out
of the blocks that he intended
to take this race national
and that he had great connections
from his tenure as
a Republican attorney general
with conservative right wing
groups all across the country that
he was going to be
making use of those ties
to fund his race.
So that's the climate that we are
in. And from
my perspective, I need to make
sure that my campaign has
the resources that we need to get
the message out to voters to help
them understand what
my experience is, what my
values are.
You know that I'm pledging to be
fair and impartial and
bring common sense justice to the
Supreme Court.
So we
we need to be able to
have resources, have money, in other
words, to get that message out.
And I have a great campaign team
who will help me to do that
in 2023.
Janet Protest, which received a lot
of direct transfers from the
Democratic Party of Wisconsin to
help fund her campaign.
And in turn, she said that she would
recuse herself from any cases that
involve the Democratic Party of
Wisconsin as a party.
Would you do the same if you receive
large direct contributions from the
Democratic Party of Wisconsin?
You know, I
what I would do is if a case came
before the Supreme Court in which
the Democratic Party
was a party, is to
look at what the facts were
in that case, who the other parties
were and what the legal
issues were that at stake, and then
make a decision about recusal
based on the specific instances
of that case.
I, I think, you know, I'm
a I'm a pretty cautious person
as a judge.
And I, I
don't prejudge matters like that
and would wait to see
what what that case brought
and whether I could be fair and
impartial. And if if it was a
situation where I believed I could
not be fair and impartial
due to past political
support.
Financing support from the
Democratic Party,
I would certainly recuse.
And finally, the the
tone of these elections has shifted
over the years as well.
We saw in 2023
gender Protasevich's opponent
refused to officially concede
gracefully on election night, saying
he did not have an opponent worthy
to concede to.
Do you sense the same tone in
this election, or do you think that
perhaps it's not quite as dark
as it was at that point?
You know, I hope that it's
not like that.
And I was disappointed in
former Justice Kelly for Not
Grace gracefully conceding
the election, which he lost
and he lost quite soundly.
I guess I would say
I
you know, I try
to be respectful and
professional in all of my dealings
with other people, and that's
how I will
treat Brett Schimmel if we
cross paths.
On the campaign trail, as I'm sure
we will.
All right.
George Crawford, thanks for your
time.
Thank you so much. Sick.
All right.
All right. That was good.
Thank you so much for giving
us the time. We appreciate it.