My Letter to Robin Vos

April 23, 2025

Dear Mr. Speaker:

The genius of or our system of government is that it doesn’t rely on the goodness of human nature. Quite the opposite. It assumes people will be self-serving.

But sometimes the stars align and what’s in one party’s self-interests is also good for democracy in the long run. Such is the case now.

Let’s face it, your team isn’t doing well at electing Supreme Court or State Superintendent candidates. Your candidates have lost the last three Supreme Court races, the last two by 10 points or more. Democrats have had a lock on the Superintendent’s office for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, Democrats have won 10 of the last 13 statewide races and one of those was for State Treasurer, which nobody cares about. Only Donald Trump (who, let’s be honest, you really can’t stand) and Ron Johnson have won meaningful races and in those cases by less than 30,000 votes.

You can skip this next part if you’d like, as I’ll be making public policy arguments.

The Supreme Court has never lent itself to elections. The most principled candidates can say nothing of interest, lest they prejudge a case. And the recent cycles have produced the most expensive court races in American history. All that money has gone into lowest common denominator attack ads in which each camp accuses the other of being soft on crime when both sides know that the Court decides very few criminal cases. Candidates are now all but announcing how they’ll vote on the most controversial cases, which undermines the public’s confidence in the Court’s integrity. It’s awful in every way.

And the Superintendent contests get completely lost in those Supreme Court food fights. Voters show up to vote for the Court candidate of their party (in these “nonpartisan” contests) and then vote along what are essentially party lines down the ticket. So, if you’re going to keep losing Court races, you can bet you’ll keep losing Superintendent races on the same ballot. But the good government problem with this is that we get no meaningful discussion of important education issues. Moreover, this is an administrative job that really shouldn’t be on the ballot in any case.

Okay, so now back to the politics. (Sorry for that digression into good government.) What’s in it for you to maintain this system? Why not change each of these positions to appointed ones? About half of the states appoint their justices and no other state has an elected superintendent not overseen by a board of education.

Yes, this would put more power in the hands of the governor, but keep two things in mind. The first is that appointments to these positions would have to go through the Senate, which your party now controls and is likely to control even after the next election. And, of course, the next governor might be a Republican.

So, Mr. Speaker, it’s in your self-interests to move from elections to appointments. You certainly have nothing to lose.

And, as you well know, it gets better. You can do this all by yourself. It’s true that Gov. Evers would have no incentive to change a system in which his party is winning. But he’s out of the picture because these changes would require constitutional amendments, which require approval in two consecutive legislatures and then by the public in a referendum. The governor has no say.

If you act now you can get this through the Republican legislature this session. Then, if you can hang on in 2026, you can pass it again the next year. If Democrats win back either house that year, this is dead because they’ll vote in their self-interests. So, everything hinges on that, but again, what do you have to lose?

And if you do get these to referendums, I’d say your chances are better than even on appointing justices and probably not as good for appointing the Superintendent. It’s fair to say the public is fed up with these ugly, expensive Court races. But, because the Superintendent contests have been lower profile, it’s more likely that this would go the way of the good idea a few years ago to abolish the Treasurer’s office. That constitutional amendment failed. But, hey, again it’s worth a try.

Democrats will hate this and I know you’ll see that as a bonus, which is why I mention it here. But they should ask themselves if the good government arguments (which you may have skipped over) aren’t right on point. And they should remind themselves that political winds shift. It wasn’t so long ago that Republicans were winning Court races right and left, mostly right.

For you, Mr. Speaker, this is good short-run politics and, while I hesitate to bring it up, it’s even better government in the long run for everyone.

Sincerely,

Dave Cieslewicz