At 75, Wisconsin’s Chief Justice Begins Fourth 10-Year Term

Photo Handout/AP Photo

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Shirley Abrahamson is starting a new term as chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. What’s unusual about that? It’s a 10-year term­­—and she’s 75.

The chief won a fourth term last spring against an opponent 26 years younger than her, and she did it in a landslide with 60 percent of the vote.

The reason? Abrahamson’s renowned work ethic. And catnaps.

Almost every day she is in chambers early, working late into the night. She has written more than 450 majority opinions for the court and participated in 3,500 decisions. She’s a prolific writer of law review articles and is listed as one of the top 100 judges in American history in “Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia.”

“She runs circles around much younger people,” said Janine P. Geske, a Marquette University Law School professor who served with Abrahamson on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for five years. “I think it would be very difficult to say she’s too old for the job.”

While most voters do not read law reviews or court opinions, they know Abrahamson. Over the past two years, she has visited all 72 counties in the state, meeting small-town newspaper editorial boards, riding along with the local sheriff, reading to elementary schoolchildren, addressing local law groups and just talking to concerned citizens.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koschnick, who credits Abrahamson as a hard worker, claimed the travels around the state were campaigning as much as working.

“She’s really very shrewd,” Koschnick said. “She didn’t have to go to all those places for her job.”

Abrahamson said the visits are important.

“(Alexander) Hamilton said the judiciary is the least understood branch of government,” she said, quoting the Founding Father who is now the darling of legal conservatives. “Part of my job is to educate the public on the work of the court.”

Wisconsin judges are required to be nonpartisan.

Abrahamson is nationally recognized as a leader in the New Federalism movement that provides greater protections for citizens under state constitutions than under the federal system, said Peter Rofes, a Marquette University law professor.

One of Abrahamson’s landmark dissents came in a case that struck down a state law that included stiffer penalties for defendants who select their victims based on race, gender or other protected classifications. In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state court, siding with Abrahamson.

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