Supreme Court choice
Eliminating treasurer also to be decided
Rebecca Dallet-Michael Screnock contest tops state races.
The spring campaign season draws to a close Tuesday when Wisconsin voters go to the polls to elect a state Supreme Court justice to a 10-year term and decide whether to abolish the office of state treasurer.
Among local races across southeastern Wisconsin: seven Milwaukee County Board supervisor districts; a judge for Waukesha County Circuit Court Branch 12; mayors in Oak Creek, Delafield, Oconomowoc, Port Washington and Cedarburg; and village presidents in Shorewood, Greendale and Hales Corners.
There are several contested races for county board seats in Waukesha, Washington, Racine and Ozaukee counties as well as school district building referendum questions in Brown Deer ($25.9 million), Northern Ozaukee ($14.9 million) and Whitnall ($16.16 million).
The top of all ballots will feature the statewide matchup of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet and Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock who are seeking to fill the seat now held by Justice Michael Gableman on the state Supreme Court.
An average of 21.5% of the voting-age population has gone to the polls in the seven spring elections since 2000 with a contested statewide election for Supreme Court justice but without a presidential primary, according to the state Elections Commission.
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson is forecasting a countywide turnout of 28% of eligible voters.
Dallet is a former clerk for federal Magistrate Judge Aaron Goodstein in Milwaukee.
Beginning in 1996, Dallet worked for 11 years as a prosecutor in the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office on gun, drug, robbery, domestic violence and sex predator cases. Her campaign ads point out that Screnock never prosecuted a case.
She was appointed chief court commissioner in 2007 and won election to the circuit court one year later. She was re-elected in 2014.
Dallet, 48, has heard more than
Dallet
10,000 cases during her tenure as judge, and her campaign emphasizes her experience.
Screnock started working for the Madison office of Michael Best & Friedrich in 2006. He represented large dairy operations and he was on the legal team that defended Gov. Scott Walker in lawsuits in state and federal court to Act 10, the 2011 law that sharply limited collective bargaining for public employees.
Screnock, 48, also provided legal research for Republican lawmakers who drew congressional and legislative district maps in 2011 that favored their party in elections. A panel of three federal judges in 2016 found those maps were unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing whether the maps are appropriate or must be redrawn.
In 2015, Walker appointed Screnock to the Sauk County circuit court. Screnock’s campaign has criticized Dallet for handing out less prison time than the law allowed in a few cases where she accepted the recommendations of prosecutors.
State treasurer: Who would believe there is a state officeholder with no employees other than himself and an office budget of around $114,000 a year?
Republican state Treasurer Matt Adamczyk is urging voters in the spring election to support eliminating the job by saying yes to a state treasurer referendum question on Tuesday’s ballot.
The treasurer is one of the original state officers created by the Wisconsin Constitution in 1848, along with the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
The office has gradually lost most of its state finance duties to other agencies, including oversight of Edvest, the state’s college savings fund. For that reason, Adamczyk said it is no longer needed.
Former GOP treasurer Jack Voight is campaigning to save the office, and he is asking voters to say no to the referendum. Legislators, in turn, should restore much of the office’s historic powers, according to Voight.
But Republicans in the Legislature have voted in two consecutive sessions to eliminate the state treasurer. As the next step, they must ask voters to approve the constitutional change.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Branch 12: Judicial candidates Laura Lau and Jack Melvin Jr. are competing to succeed Judge Kathryn Foster. Foster did not seek re-election to a six-year term.
Lau is a Waukesha County court commissioner. Melvin is the state gaming administrator.
Milwaukee County Board: There are contested races this spring in only seven of the Milwaukee County Board‘s 18 supervisory districts.
The outcome in five of the contests is being closely watched because of unusually heavy spending by an independent political expenditure committee attempting to convince voters to choose candidates favored by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.
Leadership MKE, the Abele-funded committee, has spent more than $566,439 as of March 30 to influence the vote in the five supervisory districts. Abele has contributed $790,000 to the committee so far this year.