Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is stepping down at the end of his term, providing Wisconsin voters a rare opportunity to vote for two new candidates for this office.
Voters will have a clear choice on the ballot, since the two leading candidates—Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, a Democrat, and Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel, a Republican—are almost polar opposites. Libertarian candidate Thomas Nelson is also on the ballot. Happ won a hotly contested three-way partisan primary in August, while Schimel had no opposition from his fellow Republicans in claiming his nomination. The two are far apart on most of the state’s pressing issues, including background checks for gun purchases, reproductive rights, the rights of the LGBT community and environmental protections. Perhaps the only things they have in common are that they are both supported by 42% of likely voters in the most recent Marquette University Law School poll and they both ride Harleys.
The candidates faced off in a Mike Gousha-hosted forum last week. They’ll meet again on Friday, Oct. 24, on Wisconsin Public Television and Wisconsin Public Radio, and a State Bar of Wisconsin-hosted debate on Wednesday, Oct. 29, which will be carried by WISC-TV and Wispolitics. Schimel didn’t make himself available to comment for this article.
Far Apart on the Issues
Besides wanting to address the heroin epidemic and Internet crimes against children, Happ and Schimel are on opposite sides of most issues raised in this race, such as:
n AG discretion on defending same-sex marriage, voter ID and other laws: The candidates disagree on when they would defend a law in court challenges. Happ says the AG can refuse to defend laws that are unconstitutional, just as the current and previous attorneys general have refused to defend some laws. That should be rarely done and the exception, though, she explained. Schimel says that approach makes the attorney general a “super legislator” who crosses their fingers when taking the oath of office. But promising to defend every law, as Schimel seems to do, is wrong, Happ said. “If we take that to its extreme, would Brad then, if there was a law against birth control or a law against gun ownership, actually defend those laws?” Happ queried in the Gousha forum.
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As we’ve seen in recent months as new Wisconsin laws have been challenged in state and federal courts, this isn’t just an abstract argument about the candidates’ philosophical approaches to serving as attorney general. More specifically, Happ has said repeatedly that she wouldn’t have defended the state’s same-sex marriage ban and voter ID law in court challenges. Schimel, on the other hand, said he would have fought to uphold them. He’s also flip-flopped on the state’s domestic partnership law, saying first that he wouldn’t defend it—Van Hollen didn’t defend it when it was challenged—but now says that he would have. Schimel also stated that he wasn’t sure if he’d defend the state’s campaign finance laws, which John Doe prosecutors allege that Gov. Scott Walker and his political allies violated. In addition, in an “Eye on Oshkosh
