MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a lawsuit that could determine the future of Wisconsin’s top elections official.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission filed the lawsuit last year after Republican lawmakers tried to oust Meagan Wolfe, the commission’s nonpartisan administrator. GOP leaders want Wolfe gone because of concerns about how she ran the 2020 presidential election.
Republicans who control the state Senate had promised to reject Wolfe last year when she was up for reappointment. However, Democrats on the bipartisan commission blocked her nomination from going before lawmakers by abstaining from the vote.
Senate Republicans took up the matter anyways, voting in September to fire Wolfe. The following month, Republican leaders admitted that their vote had no legal effect, since Wolfe’s nomination was not properly before them.
Attorneys for the elections commission argue that Wolfe can stay in office indefinitely as a holdover. Their argument stems from a ruling made by a then-conservative majority on the state Supreme Court in 2022. That decision maintained conservative control of the Natural Resources Board by allowing a board member to remain in office after the expiration of his term.
Watch: Supreme Court hears lawsuit over attempt to fire top elections official
The Supreme Court flipped to liberal control last year for the first time in more than a decade.
“This is a case of ‘careful what you wish for,’ isn’t it?” Justice Jill Karofksy said. “It seems to me that this has little to do with what the law actually says and far more to do with who is in these positions. If the Legislature favors someone, they stay. If they don’t, they must go. Does that sound like the rule of law to you?”
Republican lawmakers argue that elections commissioners are required by law to make an appointment for the Senate to vote on. Misha Tseytlin, the Legislature’s attorney, said commissioners are currently using “an absurd loophole that essentially keeps the peoples’ representatives from ever having a voice.”
In a statement Monday, Wolfe said that the only reason she is still in office is because it’s what the bipartisan elections commission wants.
“While they disagreed on the mechanism for making my appointment, the commissioners have always supported me staying in this role,” she said. “If they didn’t, they always had the ability to terminate my appointment and select someone new.”
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