Crooks issued a statement Wednesday saying he won’t seek re-election in April.
Advertisement
Crooks, 77, will have served nearly 39 years as a Wisconsin judge, including 20 years as a Supreme Court justice.
Bradley will be running against fellow state appellate court Judge Joanne Kloppenburg and Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Joe Donald, for a seat being vacated by retiring Justice Patrick Crooks. Donald is seen as an independent.
Crooks said he hopes whoever replaces him will be committed to being both impartial and nonpartisan: “Somebody who will have support from both sides of the political aisle”, he said.
The 77-year-old justice noted today is the 38th anniversary of his swearing in for the Brown County bench following an appointment by then-Acting Gov. Martin Schreiber.
A Green Bay native, Crooks graduated from St. Norbert College in 1960 and from the University of Notre Dame law school in 1963.
Crooks was seen as a moderate, swing vote on the court, and he’d like his replacement to have the same makeup. He won election to the state Supreme Court in 1996 and re-election in 2006.
Rebecca Bradley, who is no relation to Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, is being supported by conservatives.
Advertisement
Bradley, speaking at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, promised to run a positive campaign and said she will be a good justice and emphasized a judge’s duty to independently say “what the law is and not what I wish it to be”.
