The Rise of Jill Karofsky

Jill Karofsky. Photo courtesy of Jill Karofsky’s campaign.

For 50 years, associate justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court have had to wait an average of 18 years to become the chief justice.

Tuesday, Justice Jill Karofsky will have made the jump from circuit court judge to associate justice on the Supreme Court to its chief justice – the top administrator and public face of Wisconsin’s court system – in just five years.

It amounts to a sprint to the top of the judicial hierarchy for Karofsky, a marathon runner and Ironman competitor who turns 59 on July 15. She was elected to a 10-year term in April 2020 – an election held during the onset of the COVID pandemic.

The outspoken Karofsky, who was chided by the Judicial Commission for sarcastic comments made during President Donald Trump’s lawsuit to overturn 2020 election results in two Wisconsin counties, will preside over a court with a four-justice liberal majority.

The next Court term, which begins this fall, faces decisions on controversies that include abortion and public employee labor laws. It’s also a court that must emerge from the partisan fight that elected Justice-elect Susan Crawford – an election which set a $100-million national spending record for a judicial election.

In what may have been her most important decision, Karofsky wrote the majority opinion that struck down legislative district lines drawn by Republicans – a ruling that forced the redrawing of new districts before the 2024 election.

Republicans denounced the decision as “pre-determined,” citing the court’s new liberal majority. Then-Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, also criticized the decision: “The new majority seems to assume that their job is to remedy ‘rigged’ maps.”

Yet in the past week, the court unanimously rejected Democrats’ pleas to redraw the state’s eight U.S. House districts. Republicans hold six of those seats.

Karofsky will also be the fifth chief justice in 10 years – a major change from the 30 years between 1985 and 2015, when the court had only three chief justices.

Karofsky’s swift path to the job was cleared by two changes: A 2015 constitutional amendment, sponsored by Republicans who control the Legislature, to abolish the requirement that the longest-serving justice be the chief, and the elections of liberal candidates in 2023 and on April 1.

After voters agreed to have the seven justices elect the chief, conservatives replaced Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who held the position for 20 years, with Associate Justice Pat Roggensack. She served as chief until 2021, when conservatives then chose Ziegler.

After Crawford’s victory, the court’s majority said Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who retired after 30 years on the court, should end her career as chief justice in May and June.

When the July 1 start of her tenure as chief justice was announced, Karofsky vowed to “work respectfully with every member of this Court to ensure the administration of Court business is conducted in a fair and efficient manner.”

“The people of Wisconsin have great faith in this Court, and I intend to be a Chief that increases the people’s confidence even further,” Karofsky added.  In the latest Marquette University Law School poll, the court had a job approval rating of 49% and 38% disapproval.

A former assistant attorney general and deputy district attorney, Karofsky was elected a Dane County Circuit Court judge in 2017.

Her official  resume documents her advocacy for women: Executive director of the state Justice Department’s Office of Crime Victim Services. Wisconsin’s first Violence against Women Resource Prosecutor. Co-chair of the attorney general’s Sexual Assault Response Team. Member of the Governor’s Council on Domestic Abuse, the Wisconsin Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board and the Crime Victims Council.

Karofsky is a “single mom,” the resume adds, “and an ultra-marathoner [who] has completed multiple marathons, ultra-marathons and Ironman competitions.”

Karofsky had been on the Supreme Court for only a few months when it heard arguments from lawyers for Trump, who was challenging November 2020 presidential vote totals in Milwaukee and Dane counties.

Karofsky told a lawyer for the Trump campaign he was fighting “so that your king can stay in power” and that his fraud arguments were “nothing short of shameful” – remarks that prompted a Judicial Commission complaint against Karofsky.

In 2023, Karofsky told an Associated Press reporter that the Commission cautioned her to remain neutral and avoid sarcastic comments.

But Karofsky defended her anti-Trump outbursts. “It is beyond reason,” she declared, “to read the [Judicial] Code to require judges to be mouse-like quiet when parties are arguing in favor of a slow-motion coup.”

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com