Conservatives who sat out April’s Wisconsin Supreme election gave leftists the keys to the court for at least the next three years. And things could get a lot worse.
State Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, one of Wisconsin’s most extreme liberals, has announced a run for conservative Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley’s seat in the April 2026 election. Bradley, the textualist conservative soul of the Badger State’s court of last resort, has said that she will seek another 10-year term “to ensure that there is a voice for the constitution and for the rule of law.” But a recent report from Milwaukee conservative talk show host Mark Belling cast some doubt on Bradley’s future with the court.
Taylor launched her campaign in May with an audacious attack on Bradley, proclaiming, “Extremism and partisanship have no place on our state’s highest court.” The Madison leftist immediately disqualified herself with that statement.
The former public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Democrat lawmaker set a new bar on the word “extreme.” Taylor is fond of using words like “liberty” and “freedom,” but has no patience for such principles when it comes to conservative policy and especially those opposed to the indiscriminate murder of the unborn.
Taylor spent her formative years in southern California but has long existed in the Madison bubble — and has been rewarded by the socialists who occupy it. Her long record of far-out policies will have to stand trial statewide in the campaign season ahead. That’s a big problem, despite the fact that conservatives have failed to pick a candidate who could compete in a Supreme Court race since 2019. Even then, the nominal conservative, Justice Brian “swing vote” Hagedorn, squeaked out a win against another in a long line of radical candidates.
Taylor’s full-throated assault on the rule of immigration law may prove to be her most striking political liability.
The Sanctuary Candidate
As a Madison state senator, Taylor joined a cadre of radical lawmakers in 2019 pushing bills banning Immigration & Customs Enforcement facilities in Wisconsin. The bills “would effectively make Wisconsin a ‘sanctuary state’ for those who are undocumented,” Urban Milwaukee reported at the time.
Taylor sought to include “immigration as a protected status” in fair housing laws and to make illegal aliens eligible for in-state tuition at Wisconsin taxpayer-funded universities, the liberal Wisconsin Examiner reported. And she wanted to “restore driver’s licenses to non-citizens.”
Taylor called the proposed taxpayer giveaways and the resistance movement against federal immigration law a moral, ethical and economic issue.
“I expect every single one of you to be ready, and not to allow ICE to come into our community and take our friends and neighbors,” then-Madison Ald. Shiva Bidar, standing with Taylor, prodded a crowd of about 200 gathered on the Capitol steps at the press conference announcing the far-left bills (The proposals failed to move in the Republican-controlled legislature). In other words, break the law to normalize law-breaking.
The year before, Taylor traveled to El Salvador with Fabiola Hamdan, a Dane County immigration specialist, as part of leftist delegation to “study human rights and immigration issues.” Yes, it does sound a lot like former border czar Vice President Kamala Harris’ mission to address “the root causes that drive migration from Central America to the U.S.”
One of the members of the delegation suggested on a leftist Madison radio show that the gang violence in El Salvador was the fault of the first Trump administration and that the country could not possibly “absorb” the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants the Department of Homeland Security planned to return to El Salvador in 2018. Sound familiar?
A Leftist’s Mentor
Taylor resigned her legislative post in 2020 after her appointment by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers to fill a seat on the Dane County Circuit Court. She replaced Judge Jill Karofsky, now one of four activist liberals controlling the seven-member state Supreme Court. Arguably one of the more divisive lawmakers in Wisconsin state history, Taylor thanked her far-left Madison constituents for inspiring her to “champion more equitable, just policies.”
Taylor ran unopposed to replace retiring Judge Michael Fitzpatrick on the Madison-based District IV of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
In her application for consideration for the circuit court bench, Taylor cited as a mentor U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman, a leading contender for farthest-left jurist in the federal court system — or any court system for that matter. In 2020, the Judicial Council of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals publicly rebuked Adelman for his 35-page screed, “The Roberts Court’s Assault on Democracy,” in which he verbally abused U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, President Donald Trump, and the Republican Party.
As the Heritage Foundation’s Zack Smith and GianCarlo Canaparo noted at the time, Adelman accused the president of failing to enact policies “beneficial to the general public,” of behaving like an “autocrat,” and of failing “to buck the wealthy individuals and corporations who control his party.”
“Adelman, a judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin since 1997, targeted Republicans for special criticism and went so far as to liken them to pro-slavery ‘fire-eaters’ of the pre-Civil War South,” the authors wrote.
That’s Taylor’s mentor.
“I learned from some of the most skilled attorneys in the field. The Honorable Lynn Adelman, an attorney and state senator at the time and one of the most distinguished legal visionaries and constitutionalists in the state, demonstrated to me the power of advancing social justice issues through litigation,” the Supreme Court candidate wrote.
That’s probably the biggest of myriad problems with Taylor and the four liberal justices occupying Wisconsin’s high court; they mistake “social justice” for justice, “equity” with equality. In so doing they trample all over the constitution and the rule of law.
‘Honored to Have Earned’
Interestingly, Adelman is the judge presiding over the federal government’s criminal case against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan. The activist judge has been charged with felony obstruction and misdemeanor concealing an individual to prevent arrest. She is accused of aiding previously deported illegal immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz’s brief escape from federal law enforcement officials while he was appearing in front of Dugan on battery charges. Dugan faces up to six years in prison and a $350,000 fine if found guilty.
The jury trial, originally scheduled for later this month, has been delayed to give the Clinton-appointed Adelman more time to consider Dugan’s motions to dismiss. Her attorneys argue that she has absolute immunity from prosecution for her actions in the courtroom.
Legal experts say the immunity defense is a tough argument to make.
“Judicial immunity only applies to civil lawsuits,” Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin political science professor emeritus, recently told Fox6 in Milwaukee. “What is very strange about Judge Dugan’s motion to dismiss is she asserts an absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, even though all of the cases that she cites are about civil lawsuits.”
How does Taylor feel about the charges against her friend? How does she feel about such immunity claims? Her campaign did not respond to The Federalist’s requests for comment.
Taylor may not be the only liberal candidate in the state Supreme Court race, but she is the darling of the far-left establishment. She’s received the endorsements of all four liberals who will lead the court’s next term, three of whom have delivered Democrats some of the more constitution-defying wins on record.
“I’m honored to have earned their endorsements and look forward to the opportunity to speak with people across Wisconsin about why we need to reinforce this pro-democracy, pro-freedom majority on the Court,” Taylor said in a statement to Civic Media.
Taylor’s idea of “pro-democracy” and “pro-freedom” should frighten the hell out of anyone who values the rule of law and the basic tenets of this constitutional republic.