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The Wisconsin Supreme Court begins oral arguments in September under a new 5-2 liberal majority and faces a term that could feature politically charged cases, including those challenging the state’s congressional maps and seeking to restore collective bargaining rights for many public sector unions.
The pending cases before the high court so far, and other legal issues that may arise over the course of the term, provide ample opportunity to observe how the justices operate under a new liberal supermajority, court watchers said. Will they accept more cases following a streak of fewer decisions in recent years than in prior terms? How will the justices respond in real time to election issues during the midterms? Will they change the long-standing approach the court uses to interpret state statutes?
“Now that there is a clear majority, not just a one-vote majority, it’s entirely possible that the justices will start to differentiate themselves from one another more,” said Chad Oldfather, a professor at the Marquette University Law School. “Because there’s less of a pressure to act as a bloc.”
The high court’s liberal majority grew to five after Chris Taylor’s dominant April victory in the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court race to replace conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley. Liberal justices have won five of the last six Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, shifting the court from a 5-2 conservative majority in 2018.
The liberal wing includes Taylor, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and justices Rebecca Dallet, Janet Protasiewicz and Susan Crawford. The conservatives include justices Annette Ziegler and Brian Hagedorn, who is often a swing vote.
“I’m guessing that it’s going to not seem like a 5-2 court this coming term,” said Alan Ball, a Marquette University professor who operates the SCOWstats blog that analyzes Wisconsin Supreme Court statistics. “Maybe like a 5-1-1: five liberals and then Ziegler is a conservative, and then Hagedorn, you know, who knows?”
During the 2025 term, Hagedorn voted more often with the liberal wing of the court in split decisions than Crawford did in her first year as a justice, according to Ball’s review of the previous term. But Crawford aligned more with fellow liberals and Hagedorn with conservatives on more political issues, such as a case in the last term between Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Legislature over who controls settlement funds, Ball noted.
Justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments in 16 cases across seven days between Sept. 8 and Oct. 13. More cases could rise to the high court over the course of the new term.
What decisions will justices make about the congressional map?
Justices will hear oral arguments related to two lawsuits challenging Wisconsin’s congressional map on Sept. 16, but any decisions are not expected to impact the 2026 midterm elections, in which primary elections have already set up the candidates in races this November.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court last November tapped two three-judge panels to hear the cases challenging the congressional maps as unconstitutional. One case, brought by a group of voters, argued the maps are a partisan gerrymander. The other case, brought by the Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, argues the congressional maps are an anti-competitive gerrymander.
Both panels dismissed the challenges in separate rulings this spring, writing that only the high court could make decisions about the existing congressional maps. The voters and the business group appealed the decisions.
The issues before the justices in September for the voter-brought case include whether Wisconsin’s constitution allows partisan gerrymandering and, for the Wisconsin Business Leaders case, whether the three-judge panel was wrong in considering “anti-competitive” and partisan gerrymandering as the same argument.
Lucas Vebber, deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, who is representing multiple intervenors in both maps cases, said their position remains that the Wisconsin constitution does not allow the groups in these cases to bring their gerrymandering claims.
“This is a primary function of the Legislature,” Vebber explained. “Courts have a role to play, but they should stay within that role and not go beyond.”
Jeff Mandell, general counsel for Law Forward, a progressive law firm representing the Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy in its case, said attorneys have asked the justices to issue a decision by the end of this year ahead of jury trial dates in April in that case.
“If we’re able to hold that trial in April, that should provide time for the trial court to do its work, and for there to be an appeal if need be,” Mandell said. “And for there to be new districts that are constitutional for the 2028 congressional elections.”
There would be no need for a trial if the high court affirms the three-judge panel’s dismissal, which would leave the existing maps in place.
Will emergency election issues rise to the high court?
While the court considers issues in the congressional maps case, legal experts say the stakes of the 2026 midterm elections make it likely that the justices could face potential fast-moving cases on voting and election-related issues.
“We’ve had these fights over ballot boxes and whether you need to have a witness see your vote if you’re disabled. There was a whole issue of what has to be available for a disabled voter,” said Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice and professor at the Marquette University Law School. “Those kinds of things people can go right to the court and say ‘We’re going to bypass everybody. This is an emergency. We need the court to issue a ruling.’ I suspect, especially with all the talk of voting integrity or voting fraud … that we’re going to see that.”
Recently, the high court ordered an expedited process for briefings in an appeal filed by the Democratic National Committee about a 2024 case that sought answers to whether a circuit court has the authority to extend hours at a polling location past 8 p.m.
The Waukesha-based 2nd District Court of Appeals this summer reversed a Walworth County judge’s order from the 2024 presidential election that allowed polling locations at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus to stay open until 10:30 p.m. on Election Day. The 2nd District in July reversed the decision, arguing it is up to the Legislature to determine polling hours.
The court has yet to accept the DNC’s petition for review, but Ziegler questioned the majority’s motives in her lone dissent against speeding up the briefing process. The majority did not offer an explanation for expediting that timeline.
“We know not why this matter races to the front of the line. One would think further explanation would be forthcoming,” wrote Ziegler, who is not seeking reelection and is in her final year on the court. “One would think the majority would be more cautious to not appear to favor the political party that spent seemingly endless amounts of money to get them elected.”
Will justices accept a case to restore pre-Act 10 collective bargaining rights?
In late July, the 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed a 2024 Dane County Circuit Court ruling that restored collective bargaining rights for many public sector unions and employees. The unions in the case appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court less than three weeks later.
The issues in this case stem from whether portions of Act 10 — the 2011 law signed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that spurred massive protests at the Capitol — that separate public safety and general public employees violate equal protection guarantees in Wisconsin’s constitution.
Geske said she sees a stronger argument in this case than past legal challenges to Act 10. But the justices will have to determine whether the court is held to previous opinions it has made related to Act 10, she said.
“I think that most of the justices who felt that are gone or no longer in the majority,” Geske said.
Mandell, who is among the attorneys representing the unions in the case, said he expects the high court to decide whether to take the case sometime this fall.
“If the court takes the case in the fall, then there’s ample time for it to be briefed and argued this term,” Mandell said. “Which means that by around the Fourth of July, we should have a final answer in Wisconsin about Act 10.”
If the petition is accepted, the case would move forward without Hagedorn, who in January 2025 said he would not participate in the case. Hagedorn was chief legal counsel for Walker when Act 10 was drafted.
What should courts use to interpret state laws?
In a seemingly minor case about whether a former salesperson for a window company was eligible for unemployment insurance, the high court is expected to determine if it should use a new framework to interpret state statutes.
For years, the courts have relied on a 2004 case that placed limits on when to use outside evidence, such as legislative history, to understand state statutes. Justices and legal experts have described the case, Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County, as the most cited in Wisconsin Supreme Court history.
The question before the high court is whether justices should take “a broader, holistic approach” to interpret state laws than what the Kalal case allows.
“It’s really about how much we trust judges, or in this case, judges trust themselves to adequately or accurately assess things that legislators say,” Oldfather said. “Because the fear, of course, is that legislators will say self-serving things about what they pass into law.”
The case has not been scheduled for oral arguments, but is among pending cases before the justices. Oldfather said it’s likely the majority will take the approach that Dallet wrote about in a 2021 case about conditions in a pollution discharge permit issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
In 2021, Dallet wrote that the court’s approach to statutory interpretation should be “more comprehensive,” although she acknowledged that some sources may be more reliable than others.
“Such a holistic methodology would lead to more transparent analyses in which the court is upfront and honest about considering relevant extrinsic sources to interpret a statute’s meaning,” Dallet wrote in 2021. “That includes being transparent about those sources’ actual analytical value when they support more than one reasonable inference.”
Dallet brought up that approach again in a 2025 concurring opinion for a case that determined employees of University of Wisconsin hospitals and clinics did not have the ability to collectively bargain under Act 10.
Bradley, who left the court in July, in the same 2025 decision criticized Dallet’s effort and said a “holistic” approach “would remove any remaining constraints on judicial overreach.”
“It’s an open appeal for judges in this state to legislate from the bench,” Bradley wrote. “This court should stay the course and reject Justice Dallet’s invitation to unmoor the judiciary from the rule of law.”
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Elections, Act 10 top list of hot-button issues facing Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal supermajority is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
