Summary

Judge Susan Crawford won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, defeating conservative Brad Schimel despite his backing from Elon Musk and former President Trump.

Her victory preserves the court’s 4-3 liberal majority.

The race, expected to be the most expensive state supreme court election ever, saw spending top $100 million.

Issues before the court include abortion rights, labor laws, and potential redistricting that could affect GOP control of the U.S. House. Crawford, backed by Democrats and reproductive rights groups, will begin her 10-year term on August 1.

  • TomMasz@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Musk should be arrested for buying votes and election interference but that’s not going to happen.

  • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    What boggles my mind is that people bitch about taxes and here there was over 100 million in one state just for judge election.

    Couldn’t, we spend a 100 million in better ways?

    Who’s good at infrastructure math? Is that one bridge? Is that like 4 roads? Idk…

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      The Milwaukee Zoo Interchange cost $1.7B.

      Wisconsin currently has $4.5B sitting right there in the bank. This happened because Republicans don’t want to give the Democratic governor a win by doing, say, a big infrastructure project, paying for school lunches, or just giving it back to citizens as a tax credit. The good news is that the Supreme Court win means nobody is going to try to push through ultra gerrymandered maps again, and Democrats have a chance to take control of the legislature next election.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I would wager that a fiduciary would be capable of setting up a trust with $100,000,000 that would be capable of paying for school lunches, books, and teaching supplies, in perpetuity. Wisconsin doesn’t have too large of a population.

      • axh@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        But that would raise entitled communist brats, who think that grown ups will just feed them for free… Like… Who do you think is going to work at McDonald’s or in mines after they deport all immigrants?!? Kids need to stay hungry to be more motivated to work /S

    • Dzso@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Campaign funds are not the same as government funds and aren’t coming from taxes. And while I agree with you that it seems like a waste of money, the money was spent to fight against Musk and Trump’s corruption which is ultimately very worth the investment.

    • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      That’s not the cost of running the election, that’s the parties spending on the election, correct? So those funds were never going to go into infrastructure. I definitely agree we overspend on politics for politics sake, but please don’t conflate political party funds with government funds.

      • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Think the point is that so much money shouldn’t be available to spend on politics like this. This was more money than the 2000 presidential campaign by either side (and even then people were talking about how campaign finance was broken).

          • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            We’re also talking about a state election not nationwide. This should be an apples to oranges thing in terms of spending.

            • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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              1 day ago

              Sure, but your previous comment said:

              This was more money than the 2000 presidential campaign by either side

              But that’s not true if they’re both 2000/2025 dollars. So at least now the dollars are apples-to-apples.

    • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Absolutely , $100 million is a whole ton of money. It’s not a good excuse, but maybe it is spent in the state’s economy?… don’t make it ok but at least I hope it helped keep some newspapers alive or something.

      • dukeofdummies@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Reminds me of the door knockers who got paid to shill some libertarian a while back. So Many reports of people with absolutely no motivation, reading the scripts, and sometimes even leaving with a vote for bernie.

  • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    despite his backing from Elon Musk and former President Trump.

    If only that was his most current title…

    • gnutrino@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      It is technically correct though and I think we should all take to calling him that 'cause you just know it would piss him off

  • frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io
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    20 hours ago

    I assume now they’ll work on helping the remaining liberal justices quit to avoid whatever bizarre targeted punishment EO is soon to be coming their way. It worked for the lawyers.