Wisconsin Judge Susan Crawford argued that making Wisconsinites show a photo ID to vote “punishes” them. Now she wants a seat on the state Supreme Court.
State Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, a leftist Dane County judge, called the state’s Voter ID law “draconian” and fought to eliminate it as a private lawyer, Wisconsin Right Now has documented.
“I fought against Act 10. The draconian voter ID law,” she bragged in a 2018 column in the Capital Times when she was running for judge, backed by liberal now Justice Jill Karofsky and other Democrats. (We previously wrote about Crawford’s attempt to overturn Act 10 here.)
In story after story back in 2012 and 2014, newspaper archives show, when the law was struck down by a liberal Dane County judge and then upheld by the then-conservative state Supreme Court, Crawford was quoted as the key lawyer fighting to abolish Voter ID.
She sued on behalf of the League of Women Voters with attorney Lester Pines, arguing Voter ID was unconstitutional, according to Courthouse News Service.
“This is a great day for the citizens of Wisconsin,” Crawford declared when the liberal Dane County judge struck down Voter ID. That’s according to a quote she gave the Kenosha News in 2012. She made it clear that she did not see a role for the legislative branch on the issue.
Crawford is running for a seat on the state Supreme Court against former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, who is a Waukesha County Judge and the former Waukesha County District Attorney. Schimel has fought for Voter ID.
On his campaign website, Schimel wrote, “The dramatic overreach of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is leading our state to destruction. A Judge who represents ALL of Wisconsin, Brad Schimel will fight for the people, judge impartially, and protect what has made Wisconsin great.” His website says he believes Crawford’s election would result in Voter ID being overturned.
Judges are not supposed to be the lawmaking authority in Wisconsin. That’s the role of the legislature. Then Republican AG JB Van Hollen and Gov. Scott Walker criticized the decision at the time.
Crawford was one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. If she’s elected to the state’s highest court in April, she would form a liberal majority that could seek to invalidate Voter ID. In 2014, the state Supreme Court, then conservative, overturned the Dane County Judge and ruled that Voter ID was constitutional. In 2016, she was quoted again criticizing the law, urging an affidavit process.
The Daily Tribune reported that Crawford trashed that decision.
In 2012, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported that Crawford argued that Voter ID “punishes” voters.
Her law firm, Pines Bach, wrote, “Attorney Susan Crawford presented an update on the League of Women Voter’s legal challenge to the Wisconsin Voter ID law to a group of over 50 attorneys at an informational session held in Madison on August 22, 2012. The session, coordinated by Obama for America, trained and prepared attorneys to serve as volunteer election observers.”
