Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, who has been whiny and unhappy ever since conservatives lost their stranglehold on the state’s highest court in 2023, just can’t take it any longer. So, she’s not going to run for re-election in 2026.
Gosh, how will Wisconsin ever get along without the justice who thinks that safe-at-home orders during a global pandemic are the same as interning Japanese American people during World War II?
Bradley’s announcement about her exit was some absolutely pouty baby stuff:
For years I have warned that under the control of judicial activists, the court will make itself more powerful than the legislature, more powerful than the governor. That warning went unheeded, and Wisconsin has seen only the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court.
The jurist wasn’t nearly so worried about the court making itself too powerful when her conservative colleagues were in the majority and were able to strike down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ safe-at-home orders—which is when Fshe got to make her unhinged comparison to Japanese internment—or got to help cement the state’s absurdly gerrymandered maps. But the court’s conservative majority was broken when Justice Janet Protasiewicz won a seat in 2023, and that’s apparently when things became no fun for Becky.
Bradley’s brow-furrowing over partisanship and personal attacks is rich coming from someone who has used her judicial opinions to personally attack public health officials, by name, over public health decisions during COVID-19. After the progressive candidate Susan Crawford won a 2025 election for a seat on the court but before she took the bench, Bradley wrote an opinion randomly attacking Crawford’s campaign. For good measure, she also attacked Protasiewicz over her 2023 campaign. Such thoughtful, principled judicial service!
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Though Bradley can’t seem to shut up about the sums Democrats spent to elect Crawford, she has shown no such consternation at multibillionaire Elon Musk’s antics on behalf of Crawford’s conservative opponent, Brad Schimel, which kind of gives away the game here. Musk literally gave $100 to people to sign a petition opposing “activist judges”—aka Crawford, handed $1 million prizes to two individual Schimel voters, and donated $3 million to the state GOP to transfer to Schimel. His PAC spent an additional $11.5 million on advertising and voter turnout efforts.
That’s apparently totally fine as far as Bradley is concerned. Indeed, perhaps once she is off the bench she can help Musk in the lawsuit he still faces in Texas over his other $1 million giveaway stunt from the 2024 presidential election.
What Bradley is really mad about is that conservatives no longer have a lock on the state’s highest court and can’t just deliver victories for hard-right policies regardless of the actual law. According to Bradley, “the best path for me to rebuild the conservative movement and fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court.”
It seems like one shouldn’t have to tell a currently sitting state supreme court justice that she is not supposed to be on the court to help build a conservative movement, but instead to apply the laws fully and fairly, but here we are.
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She also probably doesn’t think much of her election chances, even though she wouldn’t admit that. Conservatives haven’t won a seat on the court since Justice Brian Hagedorn prevailed in 2019, and that was a 0.5% squeaker of a victory. In contrast, in 2023, Protasiewicz won by 11 percentage points, a slightly larger obliteration than Crawford’s 2025 victory by 10 points in her race against Schimel. If Musk’s millions can’t buy a conservative a state supreme court seat, what is this world coming to?
Bradley will no doubt have a soft landing no matter what path she chooses next. She’s young-ish, appropriately petty and vicious, and willing to do what it takes to make right-wing policies the law of the land. She just wants to be somewhere she can always win. Donald Trump will probably find her a federal judgeship or some other plum gig to do just that.