Brad Schimel Is Mr. Anti-Abortion

Brad Schimel. File photo by Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel is running for the state Supreme Court as an anti-abortion warrior and hopes to turn the spring 2025 election into a nationally funded race that will help conservatives re-take control of a majority on the court.

Schimel’s national profile on the abortion issue became clearer after a recent New York Times magazine story documented the key role that a top staff member of Schimel’s, his Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin, played in the secretive conservative network that hatched the strategy “That Took Down Roe v. Wade,” as the headline put it.

As Wisconsin Attorney General (2014-2018), Schimel had created the new position of solicitor general to pursue national litigation to undo Democratic policies like abortion rights, Obamacare and environmental regulations. As former Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager would charge, Schimel obtained more than $1 million from the Republican Legislature to fund an Office of Solicitor General “with not just an SG, but deputies and staff” to support a political agenda.

Schimel hired Tseytlin in 2015, saying that “Misha brings a wealth of experience that will serve our state well in litigation in both the state and federal courts.” One of the major issues the AG wanted Tseytlin to take on was abortion. Schimel’s extreme position on abortion was well-documented. He signed onto a 2012 white paper, authored by Wisconsin Right To Life, arguing that if the U.S. Supreme court decision in Roe v. Wade was overturned, the old Wisconsin statute from 1849 would prohibit all abortions in the state.

In one of Tseytlin’s “first public actions” as solicitor general” he “penned a piece for SCOTUSblog defending a bill that requires the state’s abortion providers have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic or discontinue performing the procedure,” the Cap Times reported.

That Wisconsin law, which had the effect of greatly reducing access to abortion, had been ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court, but Schimel said he planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision and Tseytlin handled the case. Tseytlin also wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in support of similar Texas law.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas law on June 27, 2016 and the following day refused to take on the Wisconsin case, citing its Texas decision. This ending up costing Wisconsin taxpayers $1.6 million because Planned Parenthood successfully sued to have its court costs paid for by Wisconsin, the loser in the abortion case.

Schimel also had Tseytlin write an amicus brief supporting a law in Indiana that restricted abortion rights. And Tseytlin became the key person from Schimel’s staff at a November 2016 gathering by the Federalist Society  and its leader Leonard Leo at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. just days after Donald Trump was elected president.

A focal point of the discussion was finding some way to overturn Roe V. Wade and Tseytlin, who had served as a clerk under Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, offered an approach. While the standard set by the Roe decision made abortion legal up to fetal viability, at about 24 weeks, some states had passed laws restricting it after 20 weeks. “Most of those bans had not been challenged by abortion rights lawyers — who feared they might be upheld by the Supreme Court,” the Times story reported.

What if some states cut it to 15 weeks? Tseytlin asked. He “had a hard time believing that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or Kennedy, who had come to inhabit a role as the court’s swing vote, would strike down a ban that was just a few weeks earlier than 20. Many restrictions in Europe were drawn at 12 or 15 weeks.”

The idea began to percolate in the conservative network. And in the summer of 2017 the Christian legal organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, held a four-day summit for hundreds of top conservative leaders at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, California. The guest list included 10 state attorneys general and solicitors general and “a team from the Wisconsin attorney general’s office, including Tseytlin.” There he presented his legal strategy to end Roe.

Schimel accepted over $4,000 from the ADF to attend the conference, as the AP reported, and spent $1,000 of taxpayer money to pay for one of his top staffers to attend.  Schimel had planned to keep the participation of him and his staff at the conference a secret, which was also later reported.

It was ultimately a challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week ban that led the Supreme Court, now with two new conservative judges appointed by Trump, to take up the issue. This was at a point where many conservative states had limits of 20 weeks or less, leading to the Dobbs decision overthrowing Roe and giving states the authority to decide the rules on abortion.

In response to widespread voter anger over the Dobbs decision, some Republican politicians have sought a more moderate position on abortion. Not Schimel. He recently re-confirmed his position on the 1849 law, reportedly saying at a meeting he was, “firmly pro-life” and that “the Wisconsin 1849 law is valid – there’s nothing in that law to make it invalid.”

His conservative views on abortion and other issues, and his emphasis on spending the Wisconsin taxpayers’ dollars on national litigation while attorney general, have helped him make connections that will help “nationalize” the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, he has noted.

“There are a lotta outside groups that are… committed to making sure we take back the majority on this court,” he noted in an interview on the Dan O’Donnell conservative talk radio show. “Because of my work as AG, which often led me across state borders, joined with Texas and West Virginia a lot, I do have national relationships with donors well beyond Wisconsin… I’ve met with many of them already. I’m confident that we’re gonna see them come in the race.”

Later that day, also on WISN radio, he noted again his work as attorney general in an interview with Ben Yount, which “got me connections with many of the big national donors, supporters that are on board. And so, we will, we will nationalize this race.”

With Justice Ann Walsh Bradley stepping down after her term ends, a victory by Schimel would again give the state Supreme Court a conservative majority. It’s not clear at this point who will be the liberal candidate in the race, but it’s a safe bet that Schimel’s stand on abortion, and his spending of taxpayer dollars on right-wing national causes, will be at issue in the campaign.