Wisconsin shows us why we don’t want this in Kansas.

“And the last two justices elected to Wisconsin’s highest court received most of their individual campaign contributions from people who don’t live in Wisconsin. State Supreme Court races have become everything they were never meant to be — highly partisan, astronomically expensive national political battles in which the candidates’ ideologies overshadow their qualifications for an office that requires them to swear an oath to “administer justice … faithfully and impartially…”

“Wisconsin Watch estimates the final total was $114.2 million…And that total doesn’t include the largest and most controversial expenditures of the spring campaign: Musk’s payments of $100 each to Wisconsin voters who signed a petition against ‘activist judges,’ plus $1 million checks to three signers. Add in that $30.3 million effort and the race’s price tag jumps to $144.5 million…

“’As politics has grown more intense, more polarized and more expensive, high court election campaigns now resemble the worst of a presidential primary, complete with attack ads, dark money and presidential endorsements,’ Brennan Center President Michael Waldman wrote in a March analysis. ‘All this hardly seems the best way to induce public trust in the courts.’”

Originally posted on Facebook July 25, 2026