Chris Taylor Stresses Advocacy for People in WI Supreme Court Race

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Chris Taylor speaks to attendees at a campaign event Saturday, March 7, 2026, at a union hall in Neenah, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

Over the last few years, Wisconsinites have gotten used to a new and dramatic springtime tradition: the high-profile state Supreme Court election.

In 2023 and again in 2025, big money poured into Wisconsin as liberals and conservatives battled for control of the pivotal high court in one of the nation’s pivotal swing states.

This year, there’s another high court race. And once again, it pits a liberal, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor of Madison, against a conservative, Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar of Brookfield.

But this year’s race has taken on a quieter tone.

That’s because this time around, the ideological balance of the court isn’t at play. No matter who wins, liberals will still hold a majority.

And maybe that’s part of why Taylor, the liberal candidate, hasn’t faced an onslaught of attacks — even though she traced a partisan path to the officially nonpartisan court.

It may also be why liberal voters, riding high on two big wins that decisively changed the character of the court for years to come, aren’t quite so revved up, even for a candidate with Planned Parenthood on her resume, a legislative voting record full of support for unions and public schools, and endorsements out of the gate from the four sitting liberal justices.

At a recent campaign event at a United Steelworkers union hall in Neenah, Taylor introduced herself to a sparse crowd of about a dozen — first with individual handshakes of every attendee, then at a podium, where she sketched out her biography. Mother of two. The daughter of a teacher, granddaughter of a single mother. A lawyer who fought for “individual rights and freedoms” before joining the Assembly, and pivoting once again to serve as a judge.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Chris Taylor greets attendees at one of her campaign events Saturday, March 7, 2026, at a union hall in Neenah, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

And Taylor had a big ask of people in the room.

“What I need you all to do is to talk to your friends, your family, your neighbors,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know this election is coming up on April 7.”

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when the national spotlight shined on Wisconsin’s high court race, with Elon Musk — then a member of the Trump administration — visiting to motivate conservative voters, and liberal billionaires backing the turnout efforts of Democrats. That led to record spending and record turnout.

And in this different kind of race, Taylor’s advocacy background may be what sets her apart — even as it also demonstrates the changing nature of Wisconsin’s highest court.

First an advocate…

Taylor has been a judge since 2020, and a lawyer for way longer than that. But in between finishing law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and being appointed to the Dane County Circuit Court bench, the California native was a progressive advocate.

She worked as the public policy director at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, and then spent nearly a decade in the state Assembly, where she was outspoken on issues like gun violence and abortion, and deeply critical of Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, asks questions during a public hearing of the Joint Committee on Finance, held as part of an extraordinary lame-duck session of the Legislature on Dec. 3, 2018, in Madison, Wis. Coburn Dukehart/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

In frequent speeches on the floor of the Assembly, and as a minority member of the Legislature’s Republican-led budget committee, she denounced Walker’s cuts to public education and environmental conservation.

Speaking at the event in Neenah, she hinted that his signature Act 10 policy, which effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public employees, including teachers, helped drive her into public service.

“I ran (for the Assembly) in 2011 — you all remember what was happening in 2011 — and because I was also concerned that there was a really large cut to public education in that 2011 budget,” she said.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Chris Taylor speaks during a campaign stop Saturday, March 7, 2026, at a union hall in Neenah, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

In an interview with WPR, Taylor said that doesn’t interfere with her ability to be an impartial jurist, or to weigh in on the merits of a lawsuit challenging Act 10 that may come before the Supreme Court.

“I greatly value the ability of working people to earn a decent wage and to be able to support their families and live their dreams,” she said. “I don’t think that disqualifies me from hearing Act 10 if that gets to the state Supreme Court. Those are just values that I have, that I think I share with a lot of people in the state of Wisconsin.”

Likewise, she added, her values about abortion rights are evident, and she says she sees no conflict in hearing cases in which Planned Parenthood is a plaintiff.

“Those values are really deeply ingrained in me, not just because I worked for Planned Parenthood, but as a lawyer, as a former legislator, as a mother,” she said. “I’m very alarmed that we are women are so continually having to struggle to access health care they need for their lives and for their health.”

Then-Rep. Chris Taylor, right, speaks with Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, on the floor of the Assembly during the 2017-2018 legislative session. Image source: Wisconsin Blue Book

Indeed, it’s not totally unusual for lawmakers to make the leap to nonpartisan judgeships. In Wisconsin, David Prosser was a Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly before joining the state Supreme Court. And Lynn Adelman was a Democratic state senator before being nominated to a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

But it makes Taylor a different kind of candidate than Susan Crawford, who won a seat on the Supreme Court last year, or Janet Protasiewicz, whose victory in 2023 flipped the court’s ideological balance to liberal for the first time in 15 years. Crawford and Protasiewicz also ran progressive campaigns, but they ran heavily on their backgrounds as prosecutors. Taylor describes herself foremost as an advocate.

Such a background could be a double-edged sword for someone running for an ostensibly nonpartisan judgeship. On the one hand, Taylor’s legislative background opens her up to attack from the other side. She’s got a clear voting record that they can attack. For example, one of Lazar’s ads goes after Taylor for a bill she sponsored in 2017 that would have guaranteed in state law that every woman has “the fundamental right” to an abortion.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judges Maria Lazar, left, and Chris Taylor are running for Wisconsin Supreme Court. Images courtesy of PBS Wisconsin’s “Here & Now”

But her liberal bona fides may also make it easier to rev up Democratic voters, who are already disproportionately more likely to turn out in a spring election, and who have delivered resounding victories in the last two Wisconsin Supreme Court races, even as Republicans perform more strongly in national elections.

That may indicate a real shift in how voters think about what they want in a judge, according to Charles Geyh, a professor of judicial conduct and ethics at Indiana University’s School of Law. Courts everywhere have become more politicized in recent years, he said.

And in Wisconsin, he argues, liberal voters see the courts as an outlet for their political desires in the face of a state Legislature that has been disproportionately Republican for years.

“We’re creating an environment in which voters are voting for (judges) for different reasons than they used to,” he said. “Now it’s really, ‘You’re our last hope.’”

…and then a judge.

Taylor left the Assembly in 2020, after Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court. She won her first election for the seat, and in 2023, she won election to Wisconsin’s 4th District Court of Appeals.

One of Taylor’s oldest friends was with her for each step of that journey. Joey Hoey, who is now assistant deputy secretary at the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, says her background demonstrates precisely who she’d be on Wisconsin’s highest court.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Chris Taylor greets people before a campaign stop Saturday, March 7, 2026, at a union hall in Neenah, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

More than 30 years ago, he and Taylor met at a law school party. They’ve been close ever since. Taylor introduced Hoey to the man who would later become his husband, and she officiated their wedding.

“Chris is extremely passionate about the things she believes in,” he said. “She’s always been trying to protect and encourage people to have better lives.”

Hoey remembers talking with Taylor about her decision to run for the Assembly. He said she was weighing how to transition from pure issues advocate to representing a diverse constituency.

And, he said, they had similar conversations when the possibility of becoming a judge first arose.

“Like when she made the decision to run in the Legislature, she wanted to make sure she was ready for what was going to be a switch. You know, she was going to take off one hat and put on a very different hat,” he said. “And I think she was very cognizant of the fact that the responsibilities and the role that a judge plays are very different than what an assembly representative plays.”

State Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison. Source: Rep. Taylor’s Legislative Website

At her campaign event in Neenah, Taylor argued that she made that transition — from lobbyist to lawmaker and then to judge — with a central principle guiding her.

“The throughline in my career for those last 30 years has been that passion and that commitment to people, to making sure laws are interpreted and applied fairly, and to justice,” she said.

Taylor told WPR that she’s a better judge because of her time as an advocate and a legislator, and that voters can see a consistent set of values undergirding her path.

In a quieter kind of election, those may be the signals a candidate needs to stand out.

Chris Taylor says her time as an advocate prepared her for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.