Dan Bice in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Let’s stipulate at the outset that conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel never mentioned the gender of the four justices who control the Supreme Court.

Let’s also agree that this is what Schimel said on Nov. 12 during a radio show when asked about the previous day’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court over the legality of a state law adopted in 1849 banning most abortions. He focused his attention on the court’s four-member liberal majority — all women.

Schimel and liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford square off in the April 1 general election for the Supreme Court.

“The other thing that I noted, there were times that when that camera went on several of the liberal justices, they were on the brink of losing it. You could see it in their eyes, and you could hear it in the tone of their voice,” he told conservative talker Meg Ellefson on WSAU-AM (550) and its sister stations in Wausau and Stevens Point. “They are being driven by their emotions. A Supreme Court justice had better be able to set their personal opinions and their emotions aside and rule on the law objectively. This is — we don’t have that objectivity on this court.”
Oh my.

The Journal Sentinel became aware of the audio clip just recently and presented it this week to the four justices in the Supreme Court majority — Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz and Ann Walsh Bradley.

Let’s just say they did not respond well to Schimel’s remarks. Walsh Bradley is stepping down later this year, and Schimel and Crawford are vying to fill her seat, with the winner determining the court’s ideological bent.

In a joint statement, the court majority said that everyone gets a fair shot when they appear in front of the state Supreme Court, no matter who they are. What matters, they said, is the law.

“Unfortunately, Brad Schimel is showing he has an antiquated and distorted view of women,” the four justices continued. “By suggesting that women get too emotional and are unfit to serve as judges and justices, he turns back decades of progress for women.”…