Opinion Column by Ryan J. Walsh, April 25, 2019 Wisconsin State Journal
Walsh served as chief deputy solicitor general for Gov. Scott Walker 

Candidates for state attorney general like to promise that, if elected, they will stand up for all legally defensible laws passed by the voters’ representatives, whether Republican or Democrat. This pledge is rooted in principle: an attorney general is the chief lawyer of the people, not a party, and so, like any lawyer, he ought to put the interests of his client first.

Yet recent practice suggests that whether a state’s top cop will enforce or abandon a particular law depends more on its partisan flavor.

Josh Kaul, the newly elected Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin, is no exception to this new trend. Leading up to last November’s election, his oft-stated position was clear: “The AG’s job is to defend state statutes and state agency actions if there is a legally defensible position to take.”

Now ensconced in office, Kaul has taken a new tack. In a closely followed labor case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, Kaul quietly informed the justices recently that Wisconsin no longer objects to a lower-court ruling striking down a key part of its “right-to-work” law.

Adopted by 27 states, “right-to-work” laws free private employees not to pay a union that they do not wish to support. They do this mainly by forbidding unions from adding what are called “agency shop” provisions to their collective bargaining agreements. Those clauses say that every worker must pay union dues, even if they choose not to formally join the union. READ it HERE

Thanks to all the volunteers who joined us in the fight! 

We've been working hard to get out the vote in support of Judge Brian Hagedorn and those efforts paid off. Thank you to everyone who made time to help this campaign cross the finish line. We didn't win Dane County but we helped win Wisconsin. A couple percentage points in Dane County really can make all the difference.

In the previous Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Dane County finished with 19% of the vote. This spring we finished with 21%. Yes, Dane County turned out even more Democrat voters than last time but we kept pace and improved our percentage of the vote. That two percent meant about 6,400 votes more for Judge Hagedorn this year. If that doesn't sound like a big number, look at the margin of victory.

I can't express how grateful we are to everyone who came out to write postcards, knock doors, put up signs, work the polls, and make phone calls for Judge Hagedorn. We should also thank David Blaska for running a good campaign for Madison School Board too. There is no doubt in my mind that his being on the ballot helped with those numbers too.

Let's keep moving forward and do it again in 2020!

Scott Grabins
Chair, RPDC

By DAVID FRENCH,  April 3, 2019  National Review

Religious belief isn’t incompatible with public service.
Wisconsin supreme-court candidate Brian Hagedorn was supposed to lose. He was running in a state that had just ousted Governor Scott Walker. A year ago, a liberal supreme-court candidate had won her race by almost twelve points. And to make matters worse, the media had labeled Hagedorn as a bigot, a Christian hater outside the Wisconsin mainstream. Business groups had abandoned him. One trade association had even demanded a return of its donation, claiming that his “issues” directly conflicted with the “values” of its members.

The headlines were brutal. On February 14, one in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Hagedorn had founded a Christian school that “allows bans on teachers, students, and parents in gay relationships.” In other words, his school — like thousands of other Christian schools — banned sexual activity outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Its statement of faith included the entirely orthodox declaration that “Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church.”

On February 20, another Journal Sentinal headline contended that Hagedorn had been paid $3,000 for “speeches to legal organization dubbed hate group.” The “hate group” was my former employer, the Alliance Defending Freedom. And who “dubbed” it hateful? The discredited and scandal-ridden Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Wisconsin Realtors Association revoked its endorsement. Other business groups sat out of the race. The narrative seemed set. Wisconsin was drifting back to blue, business groups capitulated to the cultural Left, and the conservative majority of the court would remain at 4–3, with another election set for next year, on the day of the Democratic primary.

But the narrative was set before the voters had their say. When business retreated, the grassroots advanced. “They picked up the slack,” as Wisconsin pro-life activist Colin O’Keefe told me. They “went nuclear,” in the words of another activist I talked to this morning. Yet another used more colorful language: “People were pissed.”   READ the REST

March 20, 2019 MacIver Institute

Special Guest Perspective by Dan O’Donnell

Lisa Neubauer is a Democrat. About that there can be no question. It’s not a stretch to say that Democratic politics is her life and has been for, well, pretty much her entire life.

One of her very first jobs was as a legislative aide to Democratic State Senator Fred Risser. She married Democratic State Assembly member Jeffrey Neubauer, who later served as chairman of both the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Democratic President Bill Clinton’s campaign in Wisconsin.

Democratic politics is such a part of the Neubauers’ lives that their daughter Greta followed them into the family business and now holds her father’s seat in the Assembly’s 62nd district.

The Neubauers, like many active Democratic families, have given generously to Democratic politicians, groups, and, of course the Democratic Party itself. “Generously” might actually be a gross understatement: Since 1992, they have given more than $92,000 to Democratic politicians, $7,300 to various Democratic Party committees, and $6,900 to former Senator Russ Feingold’s Progressives United political action committee for a staggering total of $105,660 in Democratic donations. 

According to Wisconsin Campaign Finance Information System (CFIS) records, $27,490 of that was in the name of Lisa Neubauer–including eight separate donations totaling $8,100 to former Democratic Governor Jim Doyle.

The Neubauers are both lifelong Democrats who have given to the same candidates and committees right up until the moment that Lisa became a judge.  At that point, all of the donations from the Neubauers were in Jeffrey’s name only.  

A little over a year after the last of those donations, Doyle appointed her to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals even though she had no prior judicial experience. Four months after the appointment, her husband Jeffrey donated an additional $250 to Doyle and then gave him a further $500 in 2009.  READ it HERE

View it HERE

Pastor Jerome Smith Explains Why Attacks on Religious Beliefs Have No Place In This Race

March 18, 2019

[Madison, WI] – Over the last few weeks, Supreme Court candidate Judge Brian Hagedorn has come under fire from his opponent Lisa Neubauer, the Liberal Left, and the media because he spoke publicly about his faith and pro-life values. The Constitution does not have a religious test for public office, yet Lisa Neubauer and her liberal allies have tried to center this entire election around Judge Hagedorn’s faith. Pastor Jerome Smith explains why this type of discrimination and intolerance against religious freedoms has no place in this race.   

Dear Editor:

Read the Rest Here

Watch Supreme Court Debate March 12, 2019 

Published 3-16-19.  Madison, WI  Watch youtube

Listen to candidate Brian Hagedorn discuss the media's attacks on his Christian faith.

Two John Muir interviews:

Interview -1
Interview - 2

John Muir Show, GreenBay 

NEWS TALK 97.5FM AND 1360AM

By Joy Pullmann

With six weeks left until election day in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, several far-left organizations are using media outlets to amplify a smear campaign against a judge based on his Christianity. Brian Hagedorn, a current Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge and former Scott Walker legal counsel, is being publicly trashed for being on the board of a small Christian school, and for blog posts when he was in law school discussing court cases about abortion and gay sex.

In considering a run for the state Supreme Court, the father of five children says, “I expected to be attacked here because that’s what’s happening all across the country–you know, ‘Are you now or have you ever been associated with the Knights of Columbus?'” he said, chuckling. “Interrogating people [nominated for office] if they went to a Bible study or the Knights of Columbus, that’s where we are as a country.” READ the REST Here