Questions of residency color judicial race
Two candidates in the race for circuit judge want the job badly enough that they say they’re living in Milwaukee County apart from their families, and a third has exploited that fact as he campaigns.
For more than 20 years, incumbent Paul Dedinsky and his family lived in Waukesha County. His wife and children still do, but he says he has relocated to his parents’ home in Whitefish Bay, on Milwaukee County’s north shore, since former Gov. Scott Walker appointed him to the bench in late 2018.
Brett Blomme’s husband and two children live in Dane County but Blomme says his domicile is a home the couple also owns near North 68th and West Burleigh streets in Milwaukee.
At a recent candidates’ forum, Zach Whitney said he lives in Milwaukee because he “loves it, not because I’m running for judge.”
The residency questions have added some intrigue to an election that already has the dynamic of a Walker appointee and a community activist who hasn’t practiced law in several years.
Brett Blomme
From a farming family in Missouri, Blomme, 37, earned his law degree from Marquette University and worked a year in the Madison city attorney’s office and as a public defender from 2011 to 2016, based in Marathon, Dane and Rock counties.
“I saw the broken criminal justice system we have,” he said. “To begin to try to fix it, we need to elect people with different experience.”
Blomme certainly fits the bill. He hasn’t really practiced law since he left the State Public Defender’s office over low pay and joined the AIDS Resource Center, now known as Vivent.
In 2017, he became president and CEO of Cream City Foundation, which provides grant money to LGBTQ groups in the Milwaukee area. He’s also chairman of Milwaukee’s Board of Zoning Adjustment. Neither position includes health insurance, which is why he said his husband keeps his job with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s how we’ve decided to set up our family for now,” he said. “When I explain it to most people they’re understanding and don’t think it’s an issue. Some do, but probably wouldn’t vote for me anyway.”
Paul Dedinsky
Dedinsky, 52, spent three years in private practice after he graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s law school in 1993, then spent 20 years as an assistant prosecutor in Milwaukee County.
He’s also been involved with restorative justice programs, taught at Marquette and Cardinal Stritch universities, and trained police and prosecutors about domestic violence.
In 2017, Walker appointed Dedinsky chief legal counsel to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, a job he held until the judicial appointment on Dec. 26, 2018, during Walker’s last week in office.
Earlier, Dedinsky had applied for a judge’s position in Waukesha County, stressing his 22 years of residence and connections there. Now, he stresses that he was born and raised in Milwaukee County, and spent most of his career working here.
Since his appointment, he has been assigned to Children’s Court.
Wisconsin circuit judges make $141,773 a year. Circuit court elections are nonpartisan. The two top finishers in Tuesday’s primary will appear on the April 7 ballot.
Zach Whitney
Whitney, 45, stresses that he’s lived in Milwaukee for years and that his children attend Milwaukee Public
Schools. He said voters he encounters on the campaign trail bring up the residency issue.
“What (Blomme and Dedinsky) are doing doesn’t pass the smell test,” Whitney said. “They’re not fooling county voters.”
The better reason to support him. though, Whitney says, is that he is the most qualified, having graduated in the top of his class from Marquette University Law School, clerked for a federal appeals judge, then prosecuted violent criminals for eight years before spending the last eight trying civil cases around the state.
He notes the recent and imminent retirements of many respected Milwaukee County judges and said he is smart, decisive, experienced and best able to hit the ground running.
Whitney isn’t shy about his opponents. Blomme is “not qualified, period. He hasn’t spent the time in courts doing the work to know how things work so he can’t fix them.”
He said Dedinsky, in his application for appointment, said directly he’d be working on behalf of Walker.
“The judiciary is supposed to be a check on the other two branches of government,” he said. “You are never supposed to be in the pocket of any governor if you’re a sitting judge.”