Republican group spending more than $1 million to help Brian Hagedorn in Wisconsin court race
MADISON - A Republican group swooped into Wisconsin this week to help Brian Hagedorn in his bid for the state Supreme Court, helping fill a gap left when other conservative groups abandoned the race.
The more than $1 million effort is the first dose of major outside spending for Hagedorn, who is running against Lisa Neubauer in the April 2 election. Both sit on the District 2 Court of Appeals and are hoping to succeed retiring Justice Shirley Abrahamson.
An arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee debuted ads this week, including one that invoked President Donald Trump to praise Hagedorn. That ad compares attacks against Hagedorn to those against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
WisPolitics.com first reported on the group's campaign, which includes mailers and ads on television, cable radio and digital platforms.
Neubauer has benefited from outside spending for weeks by the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee and a group run by Eric Holder, President Barack Obama's first attorney general.
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The spending for Hagedorn comes after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association decided to stay out of the race.
News of their plans surfaced after reports that Hagedorn had established a school that allows banning teachers or students for being in same-sex relationships. Hagedorn has also been criticized for giving paid speeches to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that has argued in favor of laws against sodomy and that required transgender people to get sterilized to get identity documents.
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The Republican group's first ad praises Trump for conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court but says — over images of protests in the Wisconsin Capitol — "radical out-of-state special interest groups" are spending millions for Neubauer and making false attacks, "just like they did against Justice Kavanaugh."
Kavanaugh's confirmation was thrown into doubt when Christine Blasey Ford alleged Kavanaugh had tried to sexually assault her when they were teenagers. The Senate narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh in September.
A second ad by the group calls Neubauer "liberal Lisa" and suggests she would be soft on crime and advance socialism.
As the anti-Neubauer ads began running, the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee released two more television ads calling Hagedorn an "political insider" who has an "extremist agenda."
One ad says Hagedorn "personally pocketed thousands from an anti-gay hate group," referring to $3,000 Hagedorn received over three years for giving speeches to the Alliance Defending Freedom.
In a second ad, Hagedorn is labeled "a political insider" who pushed to make it more difficult to sue companies who "poisoned kids," referring to a bill introduced by former Gov. Scott Walker that prohibits state investigation findings from being used in criminal cases against health care providers charged with neglect or abuse.
The bill also requires anyone suing over lead paint poisoning to prove the manufacturer being sued made the specific product responsible for the poisoning, according to the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council.
Hagedorn, who worked for Walker at the time as the governor's chief counsel, testified in favor of the bill.
The ads are running in Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Wausau, La Crosse/Eau Claire and Minnesota and Duluth cable markets.
Molly Beck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.