EXCLUSIVE — The Republican State Leadership Committee plans to invest millions into Wisconsin’s and Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court races as part of its efforts to secure conservative control in 2025.

In a memo to investors being sent out on Thursday and reviewed by the Washington Examiner, incoming RSLC President Edith Jorge-Tuñón called the Judicial Fairness Initiative, an effort to elect conservative judges in state races, “one of the most important initiatives of 2025.” The committee has spent more than $29 million in states across the country.

“State supreme court races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2025 will determine map-drawing at the federal and state level after our next redistricting cycle and for years to come,” Jorge-Tuñón said in the email to investors. “That’s why the RSLC’s JFI is already committed to spending seven-figures in 2025 and raising even more resources is necessary to win and could make a decade-long impact.” 

The RSLC memo also noted how state judges and justices often rule on whether to implement critical legislation passed by state lawmakers. “It is not enough just to elect Republican majorities in the states if those legislators are constantly going to be overruled by the courts,” the memo says.

Furthermore, the decisions made by state legislatures and state Supreme Courts could affect the country as a whole given that redistricting cases can change state district lines and thus influence who controls the U.S. House.

To Jorge-Tuñón and the RSLC, investing in state judicial races is paramount to “driving states in a more conservative direction.”

“The court continues to be a place in Wisconsin politics where big issues are decided,” Barry Burden, a political scientist and elections expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WPR. “The state still has a Democratic governor and Republican Legislature who don’t get along and don’t do much productive lawmaking together … so a lot of the disputes between the parties end up being settled in the courts and eventually in the state Supreme Court.”

Wisconsin’s liberal Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring, giving conservatives the opportunity to tip the 4-3 liberal majority in their favor.

“If we can unseat Bradley and replace her with a commonsense justice who won’t legislate from the bench, the partisan gerrymandering that Democrats engaged in during its state redistricting processes could be reversed by a new conservative majority,” Jorge-Tuñón wrote.

Wisconsin Republicans and Democrats have accused each other for years of gerrymandering. Liberals were able to take control of the state high court in 2023 for the first time in 15 years when then-Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly. Now, just two years later, they have to fight to maintain their majority.

The RSLC is backing former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who served in that capacity from 2015 to 2019. The Waukesha County Circuit Court judge will face off against Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford on April 1, 2025. 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court currently holds a 5-2 liberal majority, but three justices will run in retention elections in November, giving them the opportunity to serve ten more years. For conservatives to take control, at least two of the three liberal justices need to be defeated.

The RSLC memo underscored the importance of winning the races for future elections and redistricting.

“Even if Republicans are able to take back control of the Pennsylvania legislature on a Democrat-favored map and find themselves with the map-drawing pen in 2032, the liberal majority on the courts will simply overrule their maps and gerrymander them in favor of Democrats, just like they did in the 2021-2022 cycle,” Jorge-Tuñón wrote. 

In its letter to investors, the RSLC touted its success in 2024 by helping maintain and grow conservative Supreme Court majorities in Ohio and Montana. And in Texas, all 10 appellate candidates supported by the JFI won their elections. 

“It’s true, the fight for state legislatures often gets the most attention,” the RSLC memo says, “but we must not cede the critical battleground of state judicial races.”