Close ally of Walker to run for Gableman court seat
Former attorney helped defend Act 10 law
MADISON - A Sauk County judge who as an attorney helped defend Gov. Scott Walker’s signature union law said Friday he would run for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Circuit Judge Michael Screnock announced he would campaign for the seat held by conservative Justice Michael Gableman, who said Thursday that he would not be seeking re-election in 2018.
Screnock played a part in drawing legislative district maps that helped Republicans consolidate control of the state Capitol and that are being challenged by Democrats before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also helped defend Walker’s Act 10 law, which repealed most collective bargaining for most public employees in the state.
“I share ... the belief that it is the role of a judge to say what the law is and not what it should be,” Screnock said in a statement. “Judges must respect the different roles of the court and Legislature and should not legislate from the bench.”
Screnock, who was not available for an interview, was appointed by GOP Gov. Walker to the Sauk County court in 2015 and ran unopposed for election in 2016.
Screnock has an undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin Madison, an MBA from Eastern College in Pennsylvania and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin.
He worked as a city administrator and as a finance director in the cities of Reedsburg, Washburn and Ashland, before going back to law school. He then worked at the law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich before becoming a judge. Screnock lives in Reedsburg with his wife, with whom he has three adult children.
At Michael Best in 2011, Screnock and several other outside attorneys helped to defend the Walker administration and the State of Wisconsin against a raft of lawsuits by Democrats and unions who were outraged by Act 10. Walker’s collective bargaining repeal held up to these state and federal lawsuits and remains the law of the state.
Tim Burns, a liberal Madison attorney who’s also running for the Supreme Court, said Screnock had been part of a “right-wing assault on workers’ rights.”
In addition to Screnock and Burns, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet is also running for Supreme Court. Dallet attended the Democratic Party convention with Burns recently, but her spokesman, Todd Miller, sought Friday to position her as a centrist between Burns and Screnock.
“It seems like we have
two candidates on the extremes who think we should politicize the Supreme Court, and one — Judge Dallet — who thinks judges should be fair and impartial,” Miller said.
In addition to Act 10 work, Screnock and other Michael Best attorneys helped aides to Republican lawmakers draw new legislative district maps that were favorable to GOP candidates.
Last year, a panel of three federal judges ruled 2-1 that the maps of state Assembly districts were so beneficial to Republicans that they violated the voting rights of Democrats. The judges ordered the state to put in place new, more neutral maps by November so they could be used in the 2018 elections.
In February, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the maps.
States must redraw congressional and legislative maps every 10 years to account for changes in population and in 2011 the task fell to Republicans, who then as now controlled all of state government.