Gwen Moore, we leave it there. Thanks very much.
>> Thank you. >> 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