>> We'll hear from a Republican congressional
member on these matters next week on this program.
In the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
We are two months away from Election Day. The seat is
currently held by Conservative Justice
Rebecca Bradley, but she decided not to run again.
Liberals currently hold a 4 to 3 majority, so the
winner of this race will not change the balance of
the court. The conservative candidate is appellate
Court judge Maria Lazar, and the Liberal candidate
is appellate Court Judge Chris Taylor. Here and now,
senior political reporter Zac Schultz sat down with
each of the candidates tonight. We hear from Maria
Lazar. >> Well, Judge Lazar,
thanks for coming in today. >> Thank you for having me.
>> So let's start with your judicial philosophy. How
would you describe it and how does it guide you from
the bench? >> I describe my philosophy
as originalism with a slice of textualism, which means
for those who are not law nerds like me, which means
that I look at the documents and the laws as
they're written, and I interpret them from that
point of view. And if you have to go a little bit
outside, I do, but I don't go all the way outside to
intent of legislators and things like that.
>> So obviously this race is now an open seat because
Justice Bradley decided not to run again. What was what
was your first thoughts when she announced she was
not going to do that? >> Well, it was it was a
surprise. My thoughts were that I looked at the last
election, and I thought that it was so politicized
for the people in the state of Wisconsin that I thought
they actually could use a judge or a justice like me,
who's someone who is calm, judicial, has the
experience and will not legislate from the bench.
>> Has she given you any guidance? Have you reached
out to her about what it's like to run for Supreme
Court? of the past justices. I've
talked to anyone who will talk to me, and actually
more people talk to me than you would think.
to be needed to win this race?
>> I'm not positive on that. I know it will not be
anywhere close to last year. >> So in what way? How is
this different from, I guess, the last two races
when control of the court was up for grabs?
>> Well, that's one thing. I think what I meant by not
being anywhere close, I think the numbers were
bigger because it would have changed the
composition of the court. This time we're talking
about a position that is going to be most likely in
the minority, but someone who will stand up to be a
strong voice for the common sense people of my home
state. fundraising totals came out,
and you raised about 200,000, your opponent
close to 2 million. Some people raised their
eyebrows at that. But you got into this race after
her and you're trying to, I guess, fight your way into
kind of an oxygen starved environment when it comes
to fundraising. So what's it been like for you?
>> Well, that's true. So I started on October 1st. So
I think the numbers actually are relatively
good for starting that late. Also since January, which
was the cutoff date January 1st, we've had a big
groundswell of support from people who've recognized
and actually heard about this race and realize there
is no primary, and they've looked at it and they've
said, this is a race and a candidate they're
interested in supporting. >> So when you look at the
last two elections, has that impacted morale for
the number of people paying attention to this race, or
perhaps for for people getting behind your your
campaign and seeing, well, the last two conservative
candidates lost in rather large fashion.
>> I don't I don't know if it's impacted morale. What
I will say is this, I think that the state of
Running and for what reason? And when I look at this
race. The reason I am running is because I want
to be someone on that court who represents the law for
the state of Wisconsin. I want to be someone who is
their voice, bringing diversity of thought and
and judicial backgrounds and experience to that
court. I don't look at those past races as
anything indicative of what's going to happen. In
fact, I'm kind of hoping that there's going to be a
line in the sand drawn now where we can look forward
and say, who's the better judicial candidate, who has
more experience? And I think in this race, it's
pretty clear that that's my candidacy.
>> When when you compare the records of the two
candidates here, you're both circuit court judges.
You've both now in the appellate court. So how do
you explain to the public that the difference in your
background. >> Well, numbers, numbers
are the reason. So I spent 20 years in private
practice. I spent five years at the Department of
Justice representing the state of Wisconsin. But I
spent seven years in the circuit court in every
branch criminal, civil, juvenile, mental
commitments. My opponent spent two years in criminal.
I've spent four years in the Court of Appeals,
published many written opinions. My opponent has
spent two. I think when you add up the numbers, it's
pretty clear who has the judicial and legal
experience. >> Obviously, there's a
pretty high profile race for governor also kicking
off right now when we talk about that oxygen
starvation of people paying attention, how do you cut
through to let people know, hey, this race is really
important? >> Well, you're right. So
my race is April, April 7th and all the other races are
in November. I think since I've been on the Circuit
court and the Court of Appeals, I have continually
gone to my 12 counties and anywhere else, including
Milwaukee, to talk to people, to talk to high
school kids, college kids about the courts, about why
it's so important. And I do that all the time. So I
think this is just a continuation of telling
people why this race is so important. It's in April
because it's nonpartisan and it's in April because
that's how Wisconsin legislature has determined
it to be. >> We've seen in the past
couple of races, candidates talk more about their own
personal values versus issues. And that's that's a
change compared to races in prior decades. How are you
talking about your values versus issues, and what
does that mean to the public when they're
hear maybe more, more clues to what you actually feel
or how you might rule, even though that's obviously not
what you're supposed to be talking about.
things that are really important. So how I might
rule is never an issue. And no judge, no justice, no
candidate should ever say that. But we've looked at
the rules and we've looked at the ethical rules, and
we've determined that it's possible to tell the state
of Wisconsin more information about where I
stand, what I stand up for, and what issues I believe
are important and how I view the law, how I
interpret the law, what my philosophies are. So on my
website, you can go there. Judge Maria Lazar com, you
can go there. And it has my positions on important
issues that are set there, written in Black and white
so people can see it, can see what I stand for. I
don't say how I will rule on a case, but I say what I
believe is important. >> Is that frustrating when
you when you speak to people that are potentially
voters who they want to hear more, they want to
hear you talk like a politician because they
they think of these races more political as opposed
to an independent judicial race.
>> They do. And in some, some respects, I'll go
places where there will be politicians speaking. And
it's always that interesting dichotomy
between the calm demeanor of a judge versus the
politician who's yelling at the room and screaming at
everybody. But I think that's what people want.
They want their judges not to be someone who's yelling
with their hair on fire in the room. They want someone
they think they would like to have adjudicate their
cases. So when I go and talk to people, I explain
to them that I can't tell them how I'll rule on case
A versus B, but I do tell them, here's how I rule,
here's how I respect people in my court, here's what I
think of victims rights, those sort of things. I
think that gets across to people. They recognize that
there are certain limits and that we're bound by
those limits, or we should be.
precedent, you've mentioned a couple of times that if
you win, you would be in the minority. But that's
not a forever thing. As we've seen, the court can
change what is the standard when it comes to overruling
precedent. Well. >> So people have to
understand that its precedent means that you
don't. Just because the court changes composition,
you don't necessarily go back and then revisit
things you've just done. Precedent is that you
respect, you give stereo decisis. Its a credit, and
it's a benefit to cases that have been done. And
you give them time to maybe air to be to be looked at.
When courts have overturned precedent, the US Supreme
Court in general, it's something that's maybe 20,
30 years down the road. It's not something that
they just do willy nilly as as Scalia would say, it's
something that you have to have seen that it doesn't
work. You can't just say, I'm now the member of the
majority. So everything that was done, I get to
undo. That's not how courts work. We need to restore
the respect and integrity in those courts and have
them move forward and not always be looking back to
things that they want to change.
>> And finally, will you seek Donald Trump's
endorsement? We saw Brad Schimel go out and ask for
that towards the end of his campaign.
endorsements of anyone who's out of the state of
Wisconsin. If someone looks at my campaign and they
agree with my vision, my idea that we need to
restore justice and integrity to the Wisconsin
State Supreme Court, I would welcome the
discussion. But I'm not discussion. But I'm not