MADISON, Wis. — The new right-wing Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate is having a rough start to her campaign as she struggles to hide her extreme record of fighting to strip rights away from Wisconsinites.
Maria Lazar’s extreme record includes supporting abortion restrictions – even taking extreme positions that earned her the support of pro-life Wisconsin, a group that only endorses candidates opposed to 100% of abortion without exceptions. She has also aligned herself with the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election, defended attacks on working families, and has been a rubber stamp for right-wing special interests. After just over a week in the race, it’s clear that she’s on the wrong side of the top issues that Wisconsinites care about.
Cap Times: Like Scott Walker and Trump? You’ll love Maria Lazar
Cap Times Editorial | 10/8/25
- Barring an unexpected development before the January filing deadline, it looks like the field for next spring’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race has taken shape.
- This is a vital contest for an open seat on a court that was for many years controlled by a cabal of right-wing judicial activists who catered to the demands of their ideological allies, billionaire benefactors and out-of-state multinational corporations. Wisconsinites revolted against the corruption of the court’s historic mission and — in a series of elections from 2018 to 2024 that saw right-wingers defeated by progressives — the voters created a 4-3 majority of jurists who embrace the rule of law and serve the interests of working families, our communities and democracy.
- The April, 2026, court contest will choose a replacement for the most out-of-touch of the remaining right-wing judicial activists, Justice Rebecca Bradley. Smart analysts argue that Bradley recognized that her record was so extreme that she could not win reelection, so she chose to stand down.
- The jurists who have emerged as her potential replacements represent the competing views of how the court should be constituted.
- One of them is District 4 Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former Dane County Circuit Court Judge who currently serves a vast judicial district that includes the urban, rural, liberal and conservative counties of southcentral and western Wisconsin. Taylor entered the high-court race months ago as an experienced lawyer and jurist who, prior to her judicial tenure, served for a number of years as a Democratic state legislator, gaining a reputation for crafting bipartisan legislation that attracted significant Republican support.
- Taylor’s experience in the legislative and judicial branches of state government indicate that she would bring a rare, and extremely useful, knowledge of how laws are developed and the dynamics of legislative intent to the high court.
- If elected in April, Taylor would join a court majority that respects the state and national constitutions and would serve in the tradition of widely respected former members of the court such as Chief Justices Shirley Abrahamson and Ann Walsh Bradley.
- Taylor’s rival, District 2 Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, jumped into the competition late. Her experience is less broad than Taylor’s, and significantly more controversial.
- But with a history of attracting support from out-of-state political groups, special interests and prominent right-wing figures and organizations with ties to President Donald Trump and former Gov. Scott Walker, and with a legal background that’s likely to appeal to billionaires with track records of supporting conservative judicial candidates, Lazar will be a viable contender.
- And Lazar is smart. While her record parallels that of conservative court candidates who were badly beaten in 2018, 2020, 2023 and 2024, and while no serious observer of the courts doubts that she would, if elected, join the current court’s right-wing judicial activist minority, she is trying to position herself as a more responsible contender than her predecessors.
- Complaining about the politicization of the courts and claiming that she would bring a nonpartisan, less ideological style to the bench, Lazar said in her announcement of candidacy, “We need to draw a line in the sand and stop the destruction of our courts, especially our state Supreme Court,” and fretted about how, “We are bombarded by political ads for a judicial position. My candidacy will be different.”
- That sounded good. But Wisconsinites will be forgiven if they have their doubts. In its report on Lazar’s entry into the race, Wisconsin Public Radio recalled: “She worked as an attorney for the Wisconsin Department of Justice from 2010 to 2015 under Republican Attorneys General J.B. Van Hollen and Brad Schimel. … During her tenure at the DOJ, she handled some high-profile cases, including the defense of Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative maps in 2012. She also defended other Republican-authored laws from the early years of Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, including voter ID and restrictions on abortion.”
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that, “under Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s administration … she defended the state’s position in cases related to Act 10.” Act 10, it will be remembered, was the militantly anti-union law that sparked statewide opposition from teachers, nurses and other public workers across the state.
- By all appearances, right-wing donors and campaigners have been impressed with Lazar’s record.
- In an assessment of outside money and endorsements attracted by Lazar when she ran for the appeals court in 2022, Matt Rothschild of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign explained several years ago that: “A recent report by the Appleton Post-Crescent found that Lazar was endorsed by numerous individuals who have questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election or advocated to decertify the election results in Wisconsin, which legal scholars have called illegal. Those endorsements, which are listed on Lazar’s campaign website, include former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, Madison attorney Jim Troupis, and Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Bob Spindell. Gableman was hired last year by GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to investigate the results of the 2020 election. Gableman was mired in criticism for his handling of the probe and his recommendations to lawmakers to try to decertify the results, among other things. Troupis is a Madison attorney who led former President Trump’s recount efforts in the state. Spindell was one of 10 Republicans who posed as electors in December 2020 and sent Congress documents saying that Trump won the election in Wisconsin.”
- We do not begrudge Lazar her ideology or her politics. But we suspect that, for most Wisconsinites, the record will call into question Lazar’s claims of judicial independence.
