ICYMI: “Why Elon Musk Wants Brad Schimel on the Wisconsin Supreme Court”
MADISON, Wis. — After Elon Musk dumped millions of dollars into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last week, today the Bulwark laid out exactly why Elon Musk and Donald Trump see right-wing politician Brad Schimel as someone they can buy off.
“Elon Musk is spending millions of dollars trying to buy this election for Brad Schimel because he knows Schimel is for sale and will support a right-wing agenda on the Court,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Deputy Communications Director Haley McCoy. “As Attorney General, Brad Schimel spent four years working for powerful, corrupt, and extreme special interests. Now Musk wants Schimel to do the same thing on our highest court. Just as he has always done, Schimel will take aim at Wisconsinites’ core rights and freedoms ”
Read on for more about Brad Schimel’s right-wing past that earned him Elon Musk’s support:
The Bulwark: Why Elon Musk Wants Brad Schimel on the Wisconsin Supreme Court
By: Bill Lueders
- Meanwhile, Building America’s Future, a Musk-backed political nonprofit, is spending at least $1.6 million on an ad campaign that began February 20 and will continue through early March.
- In addition, Musk’s America PAC is investing $1 million on canvassing and field operations to help Schimel win.
- Schimel has expressed gratitude for Musk’s help, saying “I’m welcoming anybody that can help me get the word out about this race, help me raise support.” He’s also openly courting Donald Trump’s favor.
- Schimel, of course, insists that the help he is getting from Musk and others will have no effect on how he conducts himself.
- But no one has to buy what is given freely, and Brad Schimel has long demonstrated his willingness to use his power for highly partisan purposes.
- During his tenure as Wisconsin attorney general from 2015 to 2019, Schimel defended environmental polluters in other states and signed onto a brief backing ExxonMobil’s quest to block investigations into whether it had suppressed information about climate change (hint: yes).
- He also opposed gun laws in Washington, D.C., and teacher-tenure laws in Indiana. And he played a leading role in a twenty-state effort to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents.
- In 2018, when Schimel sought a second term as state attorney general, forty-five former assistant attorneys general signed a letter accusing him of having “blatantly politicized” his office.
- He seems to have no qualms about his activist past, boasting on a conservative radio show last year that “we sued the Obama administration every ten minutes when I was AG.”
- Schimel said during this interview that the “national relationships with donors beyond Wisconsin” he formed in the course of his partisan activities while AG gave him hope that he could come out on top in the money battle. “We’re gonna nationalize this,” he said. “Frankly, our donor base is excited about this chance to take this court back.”
- Schimel has repeatedly affirmed his belief that the 1849 law is still valid. In 2012, he signed on to a Wisconsin Right to Life white paper stating that this law put the state in “the enviable position of being able to immediately protect unborn children once Roe is eliminated.”
- A win by Schimel in April would allow the Republicans to use their weakened but still intact majorities to pass new rigged maps before that can occur, knowing that the supreme court will have their backs.
- In his eagerness to curry favor with Trump and MAGA Republicans, Schimel has expressed sympathy for the hooligans who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, saying a few days before the fourth anniversary of this event that they did not get “a fair shot” in court.
- Brad Schimel is not going to be stopping any madness, because he has joined the vast ranks of Republicans who are unwilling to criticize Trump, no matter how outrageous he gets. And that demonstrates Schimel’s unfitness for the office he seeks.
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