WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) -- The Republican candidate for Attorney General is spending a lot of time campaigning in central and northern Wisconsin. Brad Schimel says there’s a reason for that. “Races for A-G in the past have have swung based on what northern Wisconsin does. You can have the suburban areas in the south part of the state that can offset Milwaukee and Dane counties, and kind of have a truce between them, and so you get up here and work this area, and you can swing elections, so we’ve been spending a lot of time up here.”
When asked about the two big cases involving the Attorney General’s office this week, Schimel said he’s glad to see Wisconsin law stand after the court challenge on voter ID. He’s hoping that in years to come, Wisconsin can look back and say it brought integrity to the elections. As far as the long battle defending Wisconsin’s ban on gay marriage, Schimel says J.B. Van Hollen did the right thing defending the law, no matter what side of the gay marriage issue you are on. “Yes, absolutely. It’s the Attorney General’s job. You know, when you represent the state, you don’t pick and choose which laws you like and which ones you don’t like, and so you go to court, you present the case, you defend your state, and ultimately you respect the decision of the court, and that’s where we’re at now. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision is going to be the law of the land for Wisconsin, and we’ll respect that.”
Once the Supreme Court declined to hear Wisconsin’s appeal, some county clerks held off 24 hours before issuing same sex marriage licenses, including Portage County Clerk Shirley Simonis, who personally is in favor of same sex marriage. Shimel says technically, Portage County is one of the few counties that handled it properly. “You know, those clerks are in a position where they’ve got to follow the law, too, and as long as there was a stay in place from a judge, that’s the law, and I’m confident the clerk wasn’t making that decision based on her own views, but based on following the rules as they exist, and I’m sure that their Corporation Council was giving them the advice (to) hang on, this will happen. You just have to give Judge Crabb time to sign the order.”
If elected, Schimel has some reform ideas to improve the state’s justice system. He would like to move certain state lab functions from the University of Wisconsin Hygiene Lab to the Crime Lab, and he would like to have the state’s District Attorney’s program moved from the Department of Administration to the Department of Justice to better help local prosecutors. “The DA’s program has been very neglected over the years. Every county in this state is short-handed in the DA’s offices and we need to make a change to that, because if we’re going to have public safety, we’ve got to have enough people on the front lines to prosecute the cases in court. You know when there aren’t enough prosecutors, mistakes get made.”
Schimel is running against Democrat Susan Happ in the November 4th election. Polls show the race is still too close to call.
(You can listen to our interview with Brad Schimel on our website, here.)