Concurrent with
the Supreme Court race this evening was a constitutional amendment question on how the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is selected. Currently the longest serving member of the Supreme Court serves as the chief justice.
Tonight, voters voted to adopt the constitutional amendment on a 53% to 47% that the chief justice be selected by a vote of the majority of the court.
Currently Justice Shirley Abrahamson serves as the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Chief Justice Abrahamson was appointed to the court in 1976 and won elections to the court in 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009. She became Chief Justice in 1996. Based on the old chief justice selection process, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is the next most senior member of the court, and would become chief justice when Abrahamson retires from the court (if she does not seek re-election in 2019).
Under the constitutional amendment, the court will elect one of its 7 members chief justice and to serve for a term of two years. The process for electing the chief justice will be determined by the Court.
Although Justice David Prosser is the most senior conservative member of the court, pundits and observers of the Court are speculating that Justice Patience Roggensaack will likely be the Justice that conservatives select as the new Chief Justice under the constitutional amendment.
From the Wisconsin Supreme Court website:
Justice Patience Drake Roggensack was elected to the Supreme Court in 2003. She was the first Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge elected to the Supreme Court, and continues to be the only Supreme Court justice to have served on Wisconsin's intermediate appellate court.
Born in Joliet, Ill., Justice Roggensack received a bachelor's degree in biology from Drake University. She worked as a research associate at several universities prior to entering the UW Law School, where she graduated with honors in 1980.
Before joining the Supreme Court, Justice Roggensack was elected to the Court of Appeals in 1996 and re-elected in 2002. Prior to becoming a judge, Justice Roggensack practiced law for 16 years in Madison.
Justice Roggensack is a commissioner on the Uniform Laws Commission, Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Wisconsin Judicial Council, a member of the Supreme Court Rules Procedure Committee, a member of the Supreme Court Finance Committee and the Committee for Public Trust and Confidence in the Courts. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Wisconsin, the Western District of Wisconsin Bar Association, of which she is a past president, and numerous other local bar associations.
Justice Roggensack is a member of the International Women's Forum, and a past president of the Wisconsin chapter. She is a frequent guest lecturer at the UW Law School, Marquette University Law School and many state and national organizations.
She has also served on the board of directors and was a past member of the YWCA of Madison, the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth, and the Olbrich Botanical Gardens.
Justice Roggensack is married and has three children. Her current term expires July 31, 2023.
