I am ready. I am recording.
Alright, Judge Taylor, thanks for your time today.
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Let's start with your judicial philosophy.
Tell me how you came by it and how it impacts you when you're on the bench.
Well, in every case, I'm guided by the same things.
I'm guided by a desire to do justice for the people who are in front of me.
I'm guided by a obligation to apply the law as fairly and as consistently as possible.
And then I'm also obligated to hold those who violate the law accountable,
regardless of who they are or how powerful they are.
So those are really the three principles that guide my decisions in cases.
So you've been in this race for a while.
And originally your opponent was going to be the incumbent justice Rebecca Bradley.
What was your reaction when she decided not to run again?
You know, my focus really is on the people of the state of Wisconsin,
regardless of who my opponent is.
I am in this race because I care deeply about the people in our state.
They deserve a justice and a court that is going to stand up for their rights
and protect their freedoms, and they deserve a court that is going to make sure
that the other branches of government are held accountable,
including the federal government, when they overreach into the independence of our state.
So I'm very focused on getting to the people, talking with the people.
My approach doesn't change based on who I'm running against.
This is a campaign about the people of the state of Wisconsin.
And I'm going to be a justice for the people of the state of Wisconsin.
Building off that, then you don't see a big difference between Rebecca Bradley
and Maria Lazar, your point now.
You know, I think they're very similar in a lot of ways.
They have very extreme positions that are out of touch with the people of Wisconsin
on reproductive health care.
My opponent, Maria Lazar, celebrated the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
She has made comments that she would have enforced in 1849 criminal ban
that would have outlawed abortion almost every instance.
She has made comments that she thinks a six-week abortion ban would be a good thing,
signaling to the legislature that this might be a law that she would be okay with as a judge.
So those things indicate that she cannot be counted on to protect rights and freedoms
of Wisconsinites, and she wants to take us backwards.
I want to take the state and the people of the state forward.
Given the last couple of races we've seen in Wisconsin, how much money do you think it's going to take to win this race?
You know, I'm hoping not as much as what we have seen.
It has gotten ridiculous how much money are in these races.
And when I was in the legislature, I fought against the erosion of our campaign finance laws.
The reality is here in Wisconsin, we have very little laws that prevent these out-of-state billionaires
and big money special interests from coming into this race.
They're going to be coming in to support my opponent.
That is how she got elected to the Court of Appeals.
These same right-wing billionaires that we saw last April have supported her in the past.
So I anticipate that they will be back trying to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Now the great news is the people of the state of Wisconsin rejected this effort.
They are going to send a loud message again that justice is not for sale here in the state of Wisconsin.
So I have a lot of confidence in the people of the state that regardless of how much money the billionaires spend against me
and the right-wing extreme special interests, that the people of the state of Wisconsin will see that I am running for them
to be a justice for them and not prioritizing these powerful special interests.
The first fundraising numbers that came out showed you with a commanding lead in fundraising.
Is there a danger that some of your supporters may think all this race is over?
I hope not because this race is not over. We are right in the thick of it.
I take nothing for granted. I worked very hard to get out in all corners of the state and of course my campaign
or very hard to raise the resources that I would need out of my I think 19,000 campaign contributions.
15,000 of those are $100 or less.
So I am receiving a lot of support from the people of the state of Wisconsin.
That contrasts with my opponent. Her average campaign donation was $1,800.
And she only had 16 donations that were $100 or less.
So she is clearly getting her support and will continue to do so from the billionaires, from the big corporations.
I am going to the people and asking for their support because this race is about them.
What is it like trying to fundraise in this environment where you have a gubernatorial primary that is wide open,
and you have a lot of slaters up for grabs. Everyone is out there looking for dollars.
Well of course I can ask anybody directly for campaign contributions.
I am a sitting judge and we are prohibited from doing so. But I can ask people to support me.
And I think there is a lot of enthusiasm about this race. I think there is concern about what people see going on in our country.
There has never been more important that we have a strong state Supreme Court to stand up for the people,
to protect their rights and freedoms, to make sure that everyone is held accountable under the law.
The most wealthy and the most powerful don't get a pass. The law applies to everyone and the people of the state of Wisconsin
want to make sure we have a strong state Supreme Court to protect them, our state, and to make sure that justice is done.
Unlike the last couple of races, this one is not going to likely determine the majority on the bench.
Does that run the risk that this flies under the radar for some people because they don't feel the stakes are as high?
I mean I don't think so because the majority on this court can be changed on a dime.
We have five state Supreme Court elections coming up.
And so just because there is now a pro-democracy majority on this court by only one vote
does not lessen the importance of this court.
And when we have so many elections coming up, there's four more state Supreme Court elections coming up after mine.
No one should take anything for granted. This court can change very quickly.
But if I am able to get elected, there will be a pro-democracy majority on the court until at least 2030.
When you look at the amount of money that's coming in in support or opposition, how does that impact recusal?
How do in Wisconsin's recusal law strong enough for the Supreme Court?
Well, I support as Justice Carofsky has indicated us looking at the issue of recusal and having public hearings.
So the public can weigh in on the issues of recusal.
So I definitely support that. Recusal I make on a case-by-case basis.
Of course, any case that I have presided over, I recuse myself from.
And so I was on the circuit court. If one of my cases comes to the court of appeals, I recuse myself as a matter of course.
Likewise, if I'm lucky enough to get on the state Supreme Court, I would recuse myself from any case that I had presided over.
But besides that, I'm instructed by my ethical obligations to look at each case on a case-by-case basis and make sure that I can be fair and impartial.
And that's what I do every day.
There have been a lot of recusal requests over the last couple of years for the redistricting cases.
Mike Gableman's disciplinary process where are recusal requests becoming more political in the sense of trying to send a message?
Or do you think there's an earnest intent behind those?
I mean, they could be becoming more political. I don't, you know, most judges have had a whole legal career before they became judges.
And it's just would not be realistic to require people to recuse in areas of law that they practiced in or on issues they've worked on in the past.
So that's why it is a case-by-case basis because we all come to the court with experiences and history in our legal profession.
And so I think it is really important to look case-by-case for the judge to make sure they can be fair and impartial.
A couple of years ago when Janet Protece would say it's won her race, she kind of changed the game in terms of talking as a candidate about her values versus issues and making sure to stay away from how she would decide.
But explaining to voters, this is what I care about, this is what I'm passionate about.
How do you approach talking about your values or issues?
Well, I think it's really important that voters see who I am and they deserve that.
They are electing me to a 10-year term to the highest court in our state.
So I am very open about what my values are.
You know, I value every person's ability to make their own personal private healthcare decisions.
My opponent does not.
She has stated that.
That is not a value that she has.
I value courts protecting people's rights and freedoms and holding people and entities accountable when they violate our law and violate our constitution.
And my opponent has shown that she is a rubber stamp for the most powerful and the right-wing extremists in the decisions that she has issued.
And so I think it's really fair game for the public to know these things are things we value.
I think my values are reflective throughout the state of Wisconsin, Wisconsin values.
People want a court to stand up for them.
That's what I will do as a justice on the state Supreme Court.
They want a court who's going to hold those accountable who hurt them or violate the law.
That's what I will do.
And they certainly want a court that is going to check the other branches of government when they act unconstitutionally and unlawfully.
And that is what I will do.
Over the last five years, what would you say is one of the most important significant cases that Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued?
Well, I would say the case that struck down the legislative maps was extraordinarily important.
The majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by one vote found that the legislative maps that some election experts call the most gerrymandered in 40 years out of any state.
They found those maps to be unconstitutional.
And that led the legislature to pass new maps that were signed by the governor.
And I think that has led to more competitive maps.
So that was an incredibly important decision.
And I think what that really signals to the people of the state of Wisconsin is their vote should matter.
They should have the ability to vote for and to choose their elected representatives, not the other way around.
And that's exactly what George Washington said at the founding of this country.
I want to run through a few cases over the last few years just to get your reaction to some of them.
One of the more recent ones, the Congressional Register in Lawsuit Bathfield versus WAC, creating the three judge panels.
What do you think about the decision to accept that case for congressional districts?
Well, it was filed.
The case was filed in the state Supreme Court.
The state Supreme Court has to abide by a law that requires, when they're apportionment or redistricting,
filed for original jurisdiction, that that be assigned to a three judge panel.
So there's two cases now in congressional redistricting that are working their way through the judicial system.
They are with two different three judge panels.
So that's a pending case, which I will not comment on.
But that's the process.
And we have to let the judicial process play out and let the circuit courts have their trial and make their findings a fact and reach their conclusions.
But Planned Parenthood versus Ermanski.
Okay, remind me of that one again.
That was 1849.
Yes.
So I can comment.
How would you have voted on that?
Sure.
And I can comment on that case because it's been decided.
If it were still pending, I would not be able to comment on it.
So I agree with the decision that the 1849 law should not be implemented based on laws that have been passed since then that directly conflict with it.
I think that that was the right decision by the majority on the state Supreme Court.
Again, it was by one vote.
This really contrasts with my opponent.
My opponent would have voted to implement an 1849 abortion ban that was passed when I couldn't vote.
And many people couldn't vote.
So I think it was really the right decision by our state Supreme Court.
And that's a big point of difference between myself and my opponent.
There were a couple of cases under the Evers versus my mark line lawsuits having to do with the separation of powers between the legislature and the administrative branch.
JCRAR for rules oversight and NOLS stewardship and the releasing of funds.
Would you have agreed with the majority in those cases?
I had concerns when I was in the legislature that there was no check on the power of the legislature.
And so there were laws being passed that as an attorney, I really wondered are these even constitutional laws.
The problem is we had a very right wing majority on the state Supreme Court that refused to hold the legislature accountable.
That's the system my opponent wants to go back to.
I as a justice will not be a rubber stamp for any branch of government.
But yes, I was not surprised to see that those laws were overturned by our state Supreme Court.
There were real separation of powers issues with those laws.
Some of those laws really assigned the Joint Finance Committee to approve settlements that the attorney general was making.
It made no sense whatsoever.
So yes, I think that those were also the right decisions.
And looking at Trump versus Biden from 2004-03 seeking to, and Trump was trying to invalidate more than 200,000 votes in Dane in Milwaukee County,
how would you have voted on that?
I would have rejected that effort.
Again, that stands in contrast with my opponent.
My opponent has been supported in the past in her Court of Appeals race by the same individuals that led the charge in trying to overturn our 2020 election.
I think that was the right decision.
That was again a one, only a one vote decision, which is alarming because if that case had been successful, hundreds of thousands of votes in the state of Wisconsin would have been thrown out.
And that's alarming to me.
How do you approach precedent?
Because we've seen, as the court shifted, majorities over the last few years, a number of cases looking at old cases that had been settled in the past, markline being one of those.
But in that category, what would you do when you approach a precedent decision?
Well, first of all, you have to look at does the presidential case violate the Constitution?
Does it protect or take away people's rights?
So that is the first thing that I would look at.
Secondly, I think if it is an issue that walls and constitutional rights, you look at, well, has this been in place for a long period of time such that people have relied on these protections like Roe versus Wade?
It's a perfect example.
The Dobbs case took away rights that American women and Wisconsin women had come to depend on over the last 50 years throughout the duration of my life.
And so that was very alarming that it was so flippantly done, 50 years of precedent.
Again, that conflicts my opinion about Roe versus Wade, conflicts with my opponent who celebrated the reversal of Roe versus Wade.
So what I look at though in looking at precedent is did this case comport with constitutional protections or did it not?
So there's appropriate cases where precedent should be overturned.
And look at, plus a versus Ferguson, the separate but equal.
We all know that is wrong.
And thankfully, there was a case that overturned that type of discrimination in Brown versus Board of Education.
You obviously served in the legislature as a Democrat.
You wouldn't be the first sitting Supreme Court Justice who had served in the Assembly.
Justice Prosser did that.
Brad Schimmel was a Republican attorney general when he ran.
So have we turned a corner and it comes to a partisan background in the past for people running for the Supreme Court?
Look, I am so committed to politics not being anywhere near courts.
I saw, as I mentioned, when I was in the legislature, the grave danger of not having an independent state Supreme Court.
Our courts must be independent.
They cannot be rubber stamps for any political party, any group, any ideology.
And I have a six year record now of being a judge who has meticulously applied the law.
I certainly try in every single case to make sure people are heard, to make sure I know exactly what the law is.
And I attempt to apply it in the fairest way with total fidelity to that law.
So I think I have shown, I understand, I'm in a different position.
Judges have to be independent.
They must give everybody a fair chance to get justice in front of them.
That conflicts again with my opponent.
She has blatantly disregarded precedent, recent precedent, to achieve a political objective.
And that was, in a case, where she ruled that releasing the private voting information of some Wisconsin voters, it was okay.
So that some individuals' private voting data would have been released to the public.
Thankfully, her decision, which directly conflicted with a decision out of my district in the Court of Appeals, was overturned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
That's not the first time her decisions have been overturned because she has her thumb on the scale and is applying the law in a way that achieves a particular political outcome.
You can look at my cases. I've written a lot of cases. I've said a lot in the Circuit Court. You're not going to see that.
You will never see that blatant political influence come into my decisions.
I am totally committed to the Constitution and to people's rights in making sure people get a fair chance in our judiciary.
We talked earlier about the fundraising needed to win this race, but what about get out the vote?
What kind of ground game is necessary, and especially with the partisan ground game coming in the fall, is this a trial run?
Is there a room for people who are already excited to think about the fall to be participating in a race this spring?
Look, in my opinion, I want everyone who cares about justice and our democracy and fairness to join my campaign for justice.
This campaign is about everyone in the state who cares about having a strong court to protect them and a strong court to protect our state.
This is a broad campaign. I am going to all corners of this state. I'm most excited about these incredible Wisconsinites that I get to meet every single day.
I'm totally inspired by how people participate in government in our state. We should be so proud of that.
I think we're going to have a big turnout. I hope so, because my campaign is about them.
I will be a justice for the people of this state. I really do hope that people are very inspired to turnout because they can make a huge difference in their government.
That brings up a recent Supreme Court election at Bryan Hagadorn, where similar to Maria Lazar, he was written off by some people saying he hadn't raised enough money.
He doesn't have a chance, but it was the ground game at the end that brought it over when people thought the race was already in the pocket for his opponent.
Is that something that you're going to try and hammer home to your supporters?
I won't rest until April 8, the day after this election. I take nothing for granted. This is going to be a hard competitive race.
I will need every vote that I can get. I need all the help that I can get from the people of the state of Wisconsin.
So I invite them all to please join me in making sure our governments about them, not the powerful special interests, not the out-of-state billionaires.
My campaign is about them and the kind of court they deserve and the kind of justice they deserve on the state Supreme Court.
I want to talk a little bit about the Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge who was a prosecutor in federal court for her handling of a subject in her court dealing with ICE and interference.
What message has gone up to the courts and should go out to the public about how to handle these kind of situations, whether it's in public or in a business or in your home or in a courtroom about these situations?
Well, look, everyone has to abide by what the law is. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what your position is or how much money you have or how powerful you are.
So I think that judges are very much committed to that and are trying to do the right thing every single day in our courtrooms.
It's not always clear with all these new situations that emerge.
I think trial court judges in particular are balancing a lot.
And so I think trial court judges, you know, I was a trial court judge.
I've been very impressed by most of the circuit court judges I have met.
They are trying to do the right thing. They're trying to keep people safe in their courtrooms.
They're trying to apply the law in a way that is fair to people.
So I have great faith in the judiciary. I think the judiciary has really been targeted by the federal government.
And that concerns me greatly. We're just trying to do our jobs and trying to make sure that people have access to justice.
We should not be the target of vitriol and not be placed in danger because we are just trying to administer justice.
So that's been concerning to judges. And I think it's concerning to attorneys as well who have also been targeted for just representing people.
So that is very concerning. And I think the judiciary and the legal profession in general has to stand up by any effort to intimidate us,
to make certain rulings that benefit certain people. That's not our role. Our role is to make sure justice is done.
We've seen a lot of action in federal court dealing with ICE in Minneapolis. There are rumors that ICE could be coming for an engagement in Wisconsin.
Would any of that play out in state courts? Would you imagine Wisconsin courts having any interaction between local law enforcement
saying they will or will not work with ICE or local businesses who say they are not going to allow them to eat or stay in their place of business?
Well, certainly I will tell you, Zach, as I go out around the state, I think that Wisconsinites are really concerned by what they're seeing in Minnesota.
They're afraid. And I don't blame them. States courts must make sure that every person who violates the law is held accountable.
So in Minnesota, they should do their full and fair investigation, and then they will make a decision in that state about whether criminal charges will be brought.
And they should be able to do that. So yes, state courts absolutely could be involved because criminal charges are brought in state courts typically.
Nobody is above the law. The Constitution applies to everyone. And so I think that we will see some involvement or potentially see involvement if their criminal charges filed in the Minnesota state courts.
And that could happen here in Wisconsin as well.
And I want to read you a statement that came from FBI Director Cash Patel over the weekend in regards to the latest shooting in Minneapolis.
You can't bring a firearm loaded to any kind of protest that you want. Is there any legal validation in that statement?
Well, I don't know all of the laws of the state of Minnesota, but I believe they do have a concealed carry law.
So, you know, this investigation of what exactly happened in this scenario will play out, and we will find out a lot more.
And we will see if Minnesota makes a decision on how they're going to act. Our criminal charges going to be brought or other charges going to be brought.
But I don't specifically know all the laws in Minnesota, but what I would say is everyone should support a full and complete investigation into what occurred.
And if there has been unlawful activity, people need to be held accountable. But I want to make sure that Minnesota has that ability to do their investigation and make their conclusions before I jumped any conclusions.
But my gosh, we should be standing in support of them being able to do that.
And lastly, obviously you're running for Wisconsin Supreme Court position, but how much of what's happening nationally and President Trump's impact will overshadow this race, as voters take all of that into account when they're making their choices at the ballot box?
Look, I think that we have an incredible opportunity in this race, the people of the state of Wisconsin, to elect a justice who is going to stand up for their rights, for their freedoms, who is going to hold the federal government accountable
overreach into the state. And I'm going to protect the independence of Wisconsin. We are an independent state. We have our own constitution, our own laws.
And everyone is subject to those when they come in the state of Wisconsin. So I will be a strong justice, making sure our people are protected and our state is protected.
Judge Taylor, thanks for your time. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Excellent.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
All right.
Yeah, if we could just be quiet for 10 seconds, we're going to record the air conditioner at the theater.
That should be good.
Excellent. Well, thanks so much for coming.