Who is Chris Taylor? Where Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate stands on abortion rights, voter ID
While state Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan, justices on the court typically lean liberal or conservative. In recent years, the race has become increasingly polarized, with partisan groups continuing to back their party's preferred candidate.
Liberal candidates have won four of the last five Supreme Court elections. In 2023, the court flipped to a liberal majority for the first time in at least 15 years with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz.
Justice-elect Susan Crawford's victory over conservative Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel in the April 1 election cemented the court's 4-3 liberal majority through 2028, during which the court is considering issues including abortion and union rights.
Here's what to know about Taylor, including her legal system experience, positions on key issues, education and more.
Taylor has served as a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals for District IV, headquartered in Madison, since 2023. Her term expires July 31, 2029, according to the court's website.
Over the course of her 30-year legal career, Taylor said she has worked to make sure "the law is used to protect Wisconsinites, their rights and freedoms."
Before Gov. Tony Evers appointed Taylor to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020, she served in the state Legislature, where she was known as one of the most liberal members.
Taylor also worked as a private practice attorney in Milwaukee and Madison from 1996 to 2002 before becoming a public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
Taylor is 57.
Taylor lives in Madison with her husband, James Feldman, and their two sons. She grew up in Los Angeles.
Taylor received her bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. She then attended the University of Wisconsin Law School, graduating in 1995.
Taylor's campaign has officially been endorsed by the liberal majority, Justices Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky and Janet Protasiewicz. Crawford also endorsed Taylor.
'Having served alongside Judge Taylor on the Circuit Court, I know she cares deeply about the people of Wisconsin and is dedicated to making sure that our justice system protects their fundamental rights," Crawford said in a statement on May 21.
Taylor served as a public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin before joining the state Assembly in 2011. She said whether she would recuse herself from cases involving the organization would depend on the case.
"I would not categorically say because I worked for Planned Parenthood 15 years ago that I can't hear a case on reproductive health care," Taylor told the Journal Sentinel. "That would be like a judge who worked for a law firm 15 years ago who would say, 'Well I can never take a case from that law firm.'"
In Wisconsin, abortion rights have remained a flash point in Wisconsin Supreme Court races with both Protasiewicz and Crawford's campaigns using it as a rallying issue.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether the state's 1849 law specifically bans abortions or whether more recent laws or court rulings override it.
While the court has agreed to hear another case brought by Planned Parenthood seeking to make abortion a constitutional right, the court has yet to schedule a date for oral arguments. The case will most likely be heard before the winner of the spring 2026 election takes their seat.
As a lawmaker, Taylor weighed in on issues including the "lame-duck" laws that the Republican-controlled Legislature passed to scale back the powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general following Republican losses in the 2018 election.
Litigation over the legislation is before the court.
As a judge, Taylor said, she is not working as an advocate, and as a justice, she would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to recuse herself from litigation on underlying legislation she had voted on as a lawmaker.
During her time on the Appeals Court, Taylor said she has reviewed laws passed during her time in the state Legislature and hasn't run into issues being fair and impartial.
During her time in the state Legislature, Taylor called on Republican leadership to release funding for a comprehensive voter ID informational campaign after voters were turned away from the polls in the spring 2016 election. The League of Women Voters joined Taylor in that effort.
Under Wisconsin's voter ID law, the state was required to fund a public information campaign to educate voters on the new law and the identification needed to vote.
Taylor, a lawmaker at the time, said the spring elections revealed the state failed to fulfill its "obligation to educate voters about this convoluted, nonsensical new law" as many Wisconsinites lacked the proper documentation to successfully vote.
'While we know suppressing our ability to vote is the true intention behind this Voter ID legislation,' Taylor said in a press release in 2016. 'As I tell my kids at home, if you're going to change the rules, you need to let everyone else know. The solution here is simple — the GOP just needs to follow the law that they wrote.'
Taylor has been a vocal opponent of Act 10, a 13-year-old law signed by former Gov. Scott Walker that banned most collective bargaining rights for public employees.
In December, a Dane County judge struck down most of the law and in February, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a petition to bypass the court of appeals and take up the case directly.
The case now sits in the appeals court and if the ruling is appealed again, it would then go to the state Supreme Court.
Currently, the judge placed his ruling on hold, meaning the law is in effect as it moves through the courts.
Taylor will face off against incumbent Bradley on April 7, 2026. A primary, if necessary, will be held on Feb. 17.
The winner's 10-year term would begin in August 2026. If Taylor wins the seat, the court's liberal majority will grow to 5-2.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about Chris Taylor, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
41 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's play on church and state threatens the foundations of both
The Trump administration is very good at ignoring the law. Now it is encouraging pastors and churches to do the same. Earlier this month, the Trump IRS announced in a legal filing that churches can endorse political candidates. That is directly contrary to federal law, which states that tax-exempt nonprofit groups, including churches, can't use those tax-exempt funds for electoral politics. In other words, the Trump administration is inviting its conservative Christian allies to defy the law by announcing in advance that the government won't enforce it. This is about power. It's about President Trump making good on a corrupt deal he offered religious-right leaders to get their support for his 2016 run. Back then, Trump promised that if they told their followers to vote for him — ignoring his lack of character and record of amorality — he would give them two things. He'd give them a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade and pledged to make them more politically powerful by eliminating the ban on politicking by churches. One Christian writer at the time compared it to the biblical story of Satan tempting Jesus in the desert with the promise of worldly power. Church leaders, he said, should not take the deal Jesus rejected. Narrator: They took the deal. Religious-right leaders played a big role in Trump's 2016 and 2024 victories. Now he's counting on them to provide massive turnout operations for Republicans in next year's midterms to preserve his compliant congressional majorities. That will be a lot simpler if they can turn conservative megachurches into cogs in the MAGA machine even more than they already have. Despite the rhetoric from the White House and its allies, this is not about religious liberty. Churches are not singled out by current law. They just have to play by the same rules as other tax-exempt groups. Those rules don't silence anyone. They don't prevent pastors or anyone else from bringing their values into the public arena or addressing issues they care about. It is ridiculous for Trump to claim that he is bringing religion back into our public life. It never left! Christians and other people of faith have always played a role, sometimes as prophetic leaders of justice-seeking movements, and sadly, sometimes as apologists for cruelty, unjust policies and corrupt politicians. Separation of church and state — or as Jesus put it, rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's — protects religious liberty and individual freedom for everyone. As the National Council of Nonprofits noted about the recent IRS move, this is 'not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws.' The IRS is inviting corruption. It is inviting a flood of political campaign money to be laundered through churches, as tax experts have noted, 'making houses of worship a way to avoid both taxes and transparency for campaign finances.' That's not just speculation. In recent years, the IRS has allowed right-wing political advocacy groups to dishonestly reclassify themselves as churches or church associations, a legal fiction that lets them avoid disclosure rules and evade oversight and accountability. Some people I respect have suggested that the new policy is not such a big deal, because in practice, the IRS hasn't done much to enforce the provision against pastors and churches who violate it. I think they're wrong. The law has been a deterrent. It has buttressed pastors who don't want to turn their churches into right-wing political operations. Now those pastors will come under extreme pressure from religious-right political groups, right-wing pundits and MAGA politicians to get on board, as Trump's religious-right allies have themselves admitted. All this is especially troubling when Trump's Christian nationalist allies are getting bolder in promoting their divisive and un-American vision of our future. This month, for example, Christian nationalist Doug Wilson planted a church in Washington, D.C. Its goal, in the words of a Wilson associate, is to ' calibrate ' the Christians working in the Trump administration into Wilson's worldview, which he currently promotes through a publishing house and networks of churches and 'classical Christian' schools. Sitting in the congregation for the new church's opening service was Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who goes to a Wilson-affiliated church in Tennessee and sends his kids to one of Wilson's schools. Here's why that's scary: Wilson wrote a book downplaying the evils of slavery. He preaches that giving women the right to vote was a bad thing. In the ' Christian republic ' he envisions, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other non-Christians would not be allowed to hold public office — not even liberal Christians. There would be no public expressions of other faiths allowed, because ' the public spaces would belong to Christ.' In America, at least for now, the public spaces belong to no one faith. They're open to all of us. Let's keep it that way.
USA Today
41 minutes ago
- USA Today
Can Trump calm MAGA's fury by releasing more Epstein records?
On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY White House Reporter Zac Anderson breaks down some of the latest surrounding President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein records. Trump sued the Wall Street Journal Friday over the newspaper's report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein. Americans detained in Venezuela have been released in exchange for Venezuelans detained in El Salvador. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe takes a closer look at how the Trump administrations is affecting litigation over gun regulations. Health insurance costs are set to spike again. The Open Championship continues. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, July 19th, 2025. This is USA TODAY'S The Excerpt. Today, the latest on Trump and Epstein records. Plus we take a look at a prisoner exchange between the US and Venezuela and how the Trump administration is impacting litigation over gun regulations. ♦ President Donald Trump sued The Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch for at least $10 million yesterday. The suit was filed over the newspaper's report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Jeffrey Epstein that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared. The move came after Trump bowed to some of his critics by pushing for the release of certain additional Epstein records. I spoke with USA TODAY White House reporter Zac Anderson for more. Thanks for joining me, Zac. Zac Anderson: Good to be here. Taylor Wilson: So, President Trump has tapped Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony from Jeffrey Epstein's legal proceedings. Let's just start there, Zac. What's the latest and how did we get to this point? Zac Anderson: So, Trump has really faced a lot of pressure both from Republicans and his party and from Democrats to release more records related to Epstein. The Justice Department put out a memo last week that was attempting to close the book on this issue and dispel some of the concerns that people had. There's a lot of talk that Epstein had a client list of accomplices who were involved in his alleged sex trafficking scheme and speculation about how he died. The DOJ put out this memo saying they didn't have any reason to believe that he had this client list, that they affirm that he died by suicide in jail and that they weren't going to put out any more records justice officials said. And that really set people off, especially some high profile people in Trump's base, MAGA figures who were calling for the release of more records that built until Trump said that he would release certain grand jury records. But it's not all of the records and not everybody is satisfied. Taylor Wilson: Well, Zac, he doesn't usually bow to critics. What's different this time? Zac Anderson: Yeah, Trump is really known for punching back repeatedly and standing his ground in the face of criticism, but this issue has been different for him. He's feeling it from people on the right. It's also an issue that some of his top supporters, including people in his administration, really built up the expectations around this. They've talked about the Epstein files for years. They've insinuated that there could be bombshell revelations in them about powerful people complicit in illegal activity. So, this is really an issue that the right has focused on and the idea that there is nothing to here and that we're not going to release any more documents has upset a lot of people in his base who are saying that there needs to be more. There's actually a bill that was filed that would call for the release of all Epstein records, so it's become of a huge thorn in Trump's side. Taylor Wilson: Well, you mentioned his base. I mean, will this calm some of his biggest MAGA wing critics, at least on this? Zac Anderson: I think it remains to be seen. I saw some people who had called for the release of more records were sharing Trump's announcement on social media that he was going to try and unseal some of these grand jury testimony. So they seemed to be happy with that. But the Republican lawmaker, Thomas Massey, who filed the bill that would release all of the records, said that more needs to be done. Massey is not a Trump favorite. He's an independent Republican who Trump has clashed with. But again, like I said, Massey's bill is co-sponsored by some of Trump's strongest supporters. So Massey isn't giving up on this legislation. We'll see if the clamor dies down here from some of these MAGA folks. Taylor Wilson: This has clearly been an issue on the right. How are Democrats approaching this conversation? Zac Anderson: Democrats have really latched onto this as well. Massey's bill is co-sponsored by Ro Khanna, who's a democratic lawmaker from California. Other Democrats have really been pushing this issue. I think they see political opportunity here, but also there are still a lot of questions about what are in some of these records. This is really a bipartisan issue. You see both Republicans and Democrats really pushing this. Massey's bill is actually co-sponsored by both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So you have far left and far right people who have both really latched onto this issue. Taylor Wilson: Well, Zac, he's asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek this release. What's next as it pertains to these records and the broader conversation around this? Zac Anderson: We'll see where this goes. It sounds like Bondi was saying she was prepared to ask the court to unseal some of this grand jury testimony. Courts operate on their own timeline. It's not clear if they would even agree to that or how long that would take. And also, this is just a fraction of the records in there. So will people be satisfied if the grand jury stuff is released or is this going to continue to be an issue for Trump where people are going to question what other records should be released here and why aren't you releasing more? We'll have to see how that plays out. Trump has thrown this out there, I think to placate some of his critics and to show that he's listening to them. But he's also, before he did that, he really lashed out at them and said they were weaklings and they were buying into a hoax with the FDA and stuff. So he tried to hammer them, now he's trying to placate them a little bit. If they continue to grumble, would he go back to just lashing out? We'll see. Taylor Wilson: All right. Zac Anderson covers the White House for USA TODAY. Thank you, Zac. Zac Anderson: Thank you. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Secretary of State Marco Rubio says 10 Americans detained in Venezuela have been released, exchanged for Venezuelans detained in El Salvador. More than 200 Venezuelans who were deported from the US on allegations of gang membership earlier this year arrived home to the South American country yesterday. The Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador from the US in March after President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without going through normal immigration procedures. They were held in El Salvador's notorious CECOT maximum security prison. The shuttered US Embassy in Caracas shared a photo on social media of 10 men waving American flags alongside US charged affairs, John McNamara, who's based in Colombia. ♦ The Trump administration is affecting litigation over gun regulations in a number of ways. I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe for more. Hello, Maureen? Maureen Groppe: Hello. Taylor Wilson: All right, let's start by going back to 2022. What did the Supreme Court decide as it relates to who can be armed in public? Maureen Groppe: The court struck down a New York law that required the state's residents to have what the law called a proper cause to carry a handgun. In doing so, the court set up a new test for gun regulations. They said a regulation has to be similar to an historical rule about weapons to be constitutional. Taylor Wilson: Now, how did some Democrat-led states push back on that and it really just, Maureen, talk us through some of the tensions with the Trump administration that then led to? Maureen Groppe: So five states, including New York and Hawaii, changed their laws. If they're going to have less ability to control who can carry a gun in public, they focused instead on where in public someone can bring a gun. So they flipped the presumption. Instead of guns being allowed in a business or other private property, unless the property owner forbids it, the property owner under these laws has to expressly say it's okay to have a gun on the property. They have to say that either verbally or through a sign or something like that. A challenge to Hawaii's law is now pending before the Supreme Court and the Trump administration has urged the court to take the case and to declare Hawaii's law unconstitutional. The same would go for the laws in these other states, which at some administration says they all flout this decision that the court made in 2022. Taylor Wilson: Well, Maureen, as you're right, that's not the only example of how this administration is impacting litigation over gun regulations. The Justice Department also stopped defending a federal handgun rule. What's this rule in some of the broader context here? Maureen Groppe: So, under a decades old federal law, you have to be 21 to buy a handgun. That's being challenged by 18 and 20 olds who say that that rule doesn't meet the Supreme Court's test for gun rules. In one of these challenges, an appeals court agreed and said the law is unconstitutional. The Justice Department who was defending the law before the change in the administration, and that's what the Justice Department's role is is to defend federal laws. They chose not to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court, so that let's stand in that part of the country. That appeals court decision that restriction is unconstitutional. But we're waiting to see what the Justice Department says in another challenge. In that case, a different appeals court said that the law is constitutional. So that decision has been appealed to the court by the gun rights groups and the 18 and 20 year olds challenging it in that case. And it's possible that the Justice Department will say that they disagree with the appeals court decision and they think that the law is unconstitutional. If they do that and that the Supreme Court then wants to take the case, they're going to have to appoint a non-government attorney to defend the federal law. Taylor Wilson: Well, here in mid-2025, where do things stand broadly over the right to carry a gun in public? Maureen Groppe: Well, we've gotten conflicting opinions from two appeals courts about whether Hawaii's and New York's rules on where you can bring a gun, whether those are constitutional. So we have to wait and see if the Supreme Court wants to get involved to settle that question now, or if they're going to wait for more lower courts to weigh in before deciding whether they want to get involved. Taylor Wilson: You know Maureen, AR15s are such a fraught part of the conversation around firearms. How has the Justice Department during Trump's second term approached bans on these weapons? Maureen Groppe: Well, they have urged a Chicago-based appeals court to rule that Illinois's ban on AR15 is unconstitutional. No matter which way the appeals courts rule on that, the losing side is likely to bring the issue to the Supreme Court. The court in June declined to hear a challenge to a similar ban in Maryland, but Justice Kavanaugh said he expects the court will have to take up the issue soon. Taylor Wilson: We're talking a lot about the Trump administration-era Justice Department, but what has the president himself said about guns since retaking office earlier this year? Maureen Groppe: So, he promised during the campaign that he was going to vigorously defend the Second Amendment, and not long after his inauguration, he signed an executive order directing a review of the firearm rules that had been put in place by the Biden administration. And he also directed the Justice Department to review the positions that the government had taken on gun-related litigation. So that's why we're now seeing these different positions by the Justice Department through the administration and pending cases across the country. Taylor Wilson: All right. Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA TODAY. Thank you, Maureen. Maureen Groppe: Thank you. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Consumers who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace will likely face double-digit rate hikes next year. Insurers plan a medium-premium increase of 15% for 2026 plans, which would be the largest ACA insurance price hike since 2018 according to a Peterson KFF Health System Tracker Analysis published yesterday. And many working-age consumers who get their health insurance through the workplace won't be spared either. Benefits consultant Mercer said, "More than half of big employers expect to shift a larger share of insurance costs to employees and their families next year by raising deductibles, co-pays or out-of-pocket requirements." KFF said the ACA insurers cited factors including medical cost inflation, the expiration of tax credits instituted during former President Joe Biden's administration that made plans cheaper and tariffs on prescription drugs and medical device imports. You can read more with a link in today's show notes. ♦ One of golf's biggest weekends of the year is underway. The Open Championship sees American Scottie Scheffler lead by one stroke as he starts play today. You can follow along with USA TODAY Sports. ♦ And coming up tomorrow, AI is having a transformative impact on today's job market, making both senior and entry-level roles obsolete. But there's still one area where humans have a distinct advantage. Jim Frawley: I think the number one advice that you can give anybody today is pick up on that emotional intelligence, emotional quotient focus. In-person social interaction is what's going to save you from AI because if you're looking for a new job, we hire people we like and we hire people we know. Taylor Wilson: That was executive coach Jim Frawley, who regularly sits down with CEOs across the country to talk AI strategy. Jim recently joined my colleague Dana Taylor to share his insights into how job seekers and those already employed can adapt to this rapidly changing landscape. You can find that episode right here tomorrow beginning at 5:00 AM Eastern Time. ♦ And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Peace rally attendees in Geneva Saturday prevail through rain
Ann Wilson of Geneva wanted to help raise awareness within her community about things she finds unacceptable in our country today and felt that coming out to a peace rally in the rain this past Saturday morning was a way to do it. 'I've been to like my fifth or sixth rally that I've come to now, and I feel these are making a difference,' Wilson said as rain fell heavily just before 11:30 a.m. 'I feel like this draws attention to things and people are willing to speak out and maybe we can change some minds.' Saturday in Geneva brought together hundreds as the grass roots Fox Valley-based We Can Lead Change group gathered along south Randall Road and Gleneagle Drive in Geneva for a rally/protest called 'Together for Justice.' The 90-minute event represented the 10th held by the group, and they have continued to draw thousands, organizers said. Ellen Ljung of Geneva, one of the 10-member steering committee that leads the organization, spoke an hour before the start of the rally, which was already threatening to be cancelled due to severe weather. 'This is our 10th rally and people keep asking for them and so – we just do it. We have raincoats, we've done it [rallies] in bitter cold but people are asking for the opportunity to come together and we're getting people that have never been involved before,' Ljung said. 'When we started, we had 300 people on April 5th and our No Kings event had close to 10,000 people. I think today will be small because of the weather and it's not a national thing but we're talking thousands that have gotten involved. We're not small anymore.' Ljung spoke about the impact of the rallies on national government officials and said despite being locally based, 'They are having an effect.' 'We are giving people a way to connect and to show them our initiatives and to help people get involved,' she said. 'I think the sense of pressure is being felt by Washington because it's not just us – it's nationwide. A lot of the rallies have been on nationally-designated days and I feel the pressure is being felt. I also think it's absolutely critical for people to have an outlet to work for change.' Ljung noted that the group also offers educational programs and initiatives and 'has written representatives about the latest budget bill.' 'We've written senators and the Supreme Court asking them to protect due process,' she said. 'We worked on immigrations and met with libraries and school superintendents. Our goal is to bring people together to work for change. I'm 78 now and I never thought we'd be doing this in the last chapter of our life, but the only way to make change happen is grassroots organizing. What we do here in Kane County is a drop-in-the-bucket, but we're filling buckets around the nation and that pressure will come to bear.' Despite an 11:30 a.m. official start time, supporters were already present an hour before and drew plenty of honking horns and cheers as motorists drove by. Rain and lightning forced an early cancellation just before noon but not before Wilson and others in attendance had their say. 'We had 10,000 people at the Kings Rally we had and then we did the bridge rally with 5,000 on the Geneva Bridge,' Wilson said. 'This is a good way to build community and maybe fight.' Pamela O' Brien of Batavia sat under an umbrella and said she has been 'at every rally since [President] Trump was elected.' 'I was at a lot of the other ones – maybe eight or 10 altogether and when I know something is coming up – I cancel everything else I'm doing because I feel it's the most important thing to do right now,' she said. 'I'm surprised when other people don't.' O'Brien said looking back on the rallies she has attended, 'I see an engaged yet peaceful group of people, very passionate about keeping democracy.' 'It's a very diverse group of people as well as all kinds of issues – everything from young people afraid of what the future will bring to someone from Mexico,' she said. 'Community wise – compared to when the presidential election was over – there's been much more engagement. This whole Randall Road is touching more people and they are starting to wake up.' JoAnn Vanthournout of St. Charles, 92, attended her first rally and admitted 'I never thought I'd be a protestor at my age.' 'I never thought someone we have as president would be elected. I remember the Vietnam protests and it does feel at least like I'm trying,' she said. 'I was afraid at first but they said I could bring a chair. I'd like to come again but I'd prefer it not be raining.' Denise Ward of Geneva said this was her sixth rally and was encouraged by the turnout despite the rain. 'These rallies are making a difference,' she insisted. 'At least it shows we're not going to sit here and let things happen.'
