The former director of Wisconsin's court system filed five complaints against his replacement and the liberal state Supreme Court justices who voted to oust him, claiming his dismissal was politically motivated and the new appointment illegal.
Randy Koschnick was appointed to his role as the state's top nonjudicial court official in 2017, when conservatives held the majority. He filed his grievances on Tuesday with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, an independent agency tasked with enforcing a code of conduct for judges and court commissioners in the state.
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He was fired one day after liberals secured a majority on the state Supreme Court in April.
Koschnick argued in his complaint that Audrey Skwierawski, a Milwaukee County judge who has been named interim director of the state court system, is not legally allowed to be in that role until July 2025 because the state constitution prohibits judges from holding nonjudicial offices until their terms end.
He also filed complaints against Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, and Janet Protasiewicz, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
"I think it's a real threat to the system, long term, to have justices not following the constitution and apparently not being concerned about it," Koschnick said.
But Skwierawski, who took leave from her position on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Aug. 3, said in a statement that she worked with legal experts and reviewed the law herself to make sure she was eligible to serve in her new role. As director of state courts, she will advise the state Supreme Court on how to improve its processes while also overseeing its budgets and operations.
Earlier this month, conservative Chief Justice Annette Ziegler blasted her liberal colleagues for Koschnick's firing in what she called "a raw exercise of overreaching power."
"To say that I am disappointed in my colleagues is an understatement," Ziegler said.
She also called the ousting procedurally and legally flawed but stopped short of saying she'd intervene, claiming such a move could trigger the firings of other court employees.
"It is shameful," added Ziegler, a member of the three-justice conservative minority. "I fear this is only the beginning."
When conservatives took over the court in 2008, they did not fire John Voelker, the director of the state courts at the time. Instead, he remained in his post for another six years before becoming the deputy secretary at the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds in July 2014.
The fight over ideological control of the court made headlines across the country earlier this year when Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Daniel Kelly in a record-shattering election for the coveted seat. Her win wrangled control from conservatives, who were in power for 15 years, and made her the deciding vote on abortion rights, legislative maps, and perhaps even the 2024 presidential race.
Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, and the court itself, are technically nonpartisan, but Protasiewicz has taken very public stances on abortion and the state's legislative maps. Republicans in the state legislature have threatened to impeach her if she does not recuse herself from certain cases, though the likelihood of her removal is slim since it would require the governor, a Democrat, to sign off on it.
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"At the end of the day, Wisconsin is a deeply and bitterly divided state, politically, and those divisions are very much reflected on the state Supreme Court," Anthony Chergosky, an expert on the state's politics and courts at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, told NBC News. "The flip in majority control was inevitably going to be jarring — it was bound to be a dramatic transition. And it has been."
The Wisconsin Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.