The Curious Campaign of Brad Schimel

Ahead of a campaign event targeting Latino voters at the Wisconsin Republican Party’s Hispanic outreach center on Milwaukee’s south side on Thursday afternoon, a few dozen protesters gathered on the street outside the venue. Carrying an eight-foot effigy of Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, the protesters chanted  about Elon Musk’s campaign expenditures to help Schimel win an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the about the vote by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a budget that includes cuts to federal programs like Medicaid.

Inside, a group of members of the right-wing John Birch Society — most famous for conspiracy theories and anti-communist crusades in the 1960s and ’70s — made fun of the protesters and questioned the validity of their beliefs.

“They’re paid, that’s organized as hell,” one woman said. “If you’re gonna protest, protest something that’s legit.”

Schimel, who served as Wisconsin’s Republican state attorney general from 2015-19, has run his campaign for the Court by attacking the body’s current liberal majority — saying that the group is legislating from the bench and specifically calling out Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s successful 2023 campaign for making “open promises on the campaign trail.”

In her campaign, Protasiewicz said she personally believes in women’s right to access abortion but said her beliefs would not influence how she would rule on legal questions in abortion-related cases.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Friday that Schimel said in a radio interview last year, after the Court heard arguments over the validity of Wisconsin’s 1849 law that has been interpreted as a blanket ban on abortion, that the Court’s majority, all women, were “driven by their emotions” while hearing the case.

In a press release Friday, the Schimel campaign said he would restore the Court’s “impartiality” if elected.

On the campaign trail, Schimel often compares the Supreme Court to a baseball umpire, saying Brewers fans would be frustrated if they sat down for a game with their “$17 beer” and the home plate umpire came out wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jersey.

“You’re not going to stick around and buy another expensive beer, because you know how this game’s going to end. Why bother?” Schimel said at the Thursday event. “Litigants should not come to court knowing they’ve lost their case before they even uttered a word based on the identity of the judge that’s going to hear it. It’s not how it should work.”

But at Schimel’s “Hispanic roundtable” Thursday, the state Republican Party was fully engaged. Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Brian Schimming and former Republican candidate for attorney general Eric Toney were in attendance, rubbing elbows with the John Birch Society members.

“Because people in this state and people in this city and people on the South Side need somebody who’s gonna have them top of mind and protecting victims and doing the right thing, stand up for the rule of law, all the things that we all want,” Schimming said. “And you would expect that would be easier for people to do, but it really takes somebody of great courage, somebody who’s honest and somebody who’s forthright, to step up at times like this.”

One attendee, filming Schimel’s remarks, wore #LoomersArmy hat, merch that can be purchased on the website of the Laura Loomer Fan Club. Loomer is a right-wing media personality and activist whom U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has called “extremely racist.”

Schimel was introduced at the event by Marty Calderon and Mariano Garcia, two pastors on Milwaukee’s South Side who have been involved in the creation of the Republican Party’s office in the neighborhood.

In his opening prayer, Garcia criticized Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ people.

“Black people, there are some Black people here. I’m a preacher so I can say this: Black people have worshiped at the altar of color and race for a long time,” Garcia said. “And LGBTQ, because when Obama put out those colors, a bunch of pastors turned and we shouldn’t do that. We should stand with righteousness and for God, for his word, for holiness. Amen. And Hispanics, they worship at the altar of immigration. And that is an issue … this is about law and order. Right now, even people who are illegal are against illegal immigration because what is happening is not the same thing. There is an onslaught, an invasion, there is something that all of us can unite against. Because this is endangering all of our communities. Amen.”

Garcia said Schimel plans to visit Garcia’s church on Sunday. After the event, Schimel told reporters his Christian faith helps him remain objective.

“I don’t begin my day doing public service without prayer every day without fail, because there are such huge impacts you can have on people’s lives, and I’m hoping for the wisdom to know how to do that, right?” he said. “But it also affects another way, as people stand in front of me, I see in everybody that stands there a dignity that comes from God for them, in them, and therefore that helps with that being objective. And I don’t view them how they look, how they appear, how they talk, how much money they have. They’re equal under the law. So that is something that my faith drives in me and how I deal with other human beings.”

Schimel preaches impartiality to right-wing groups was originally published by the Wisconsin Examiner.