How Dobbs made the Wisconsin Supreme Court race one of the biggest elections of 2023
A pivotal race to decide the balance of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will determine the fate of abortion rights in the state — and could come down to two women judges with markedly different judicial philosophies and approaches.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ending almost 50 years of federal abortion protections gave states the last word on abortion access. And in many states, including Wisconsin, that means the state supreme court will have the final say. The state’s 19th-century abortion ban ground abortion services in Wisconsin to a halt after the Dobbs decision, and the procedure remains out of reach while the fate of the law is up in the air.
“It’s a confluence of things, not all of them planned, that have made this race as important as any election in the state,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and election expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin stands out in contrast to its neighbors Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan who have moved to fortify abortion access after the Dobbs decision. The state’s divided government, shaped by heavily gerrymandered legislative maps, has spent the last several years paralyzed by dysfunction and gridlock on everything from emergency COVID-19 policies to election rules and the state’s political maps, all coming to a head in 2023.
“All of the most controversial, difficult things seem to end up there,” Burden said of the state Supreme Court.
https://19thnews.org/2023/02/wisconsin-supreme-court-abortion/
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