Dan Kelly opposed Social Security, federal anti-poverty programs in 2010s blog posts

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, the conservative running Tuesday to fill a vacancy on the state’s high court, frames his race against liberal Milwaukee Judge Janet Protasiewicz as a choice between “the rule of law” and “the rule of Janet.”

But even as he attacks his opponent for what he calls her partisan views, Kelly has a partisan history of publicly opposing social welfare programs.

In a series of posts on a blog called Hang Together, some of which Kelly scrubbed during his previous failed run for the Supreme Court in 2020, the conservative jurist suggested that state-funded welfare programs perpetuate poverty and dysfunction. His writing compared Social Security to involuntary servitude, socialism, and a pyramid scheme, and he said social welfare programs should be supplanted by church-based programs.

In one post, Kelly wrote that government assistance breeds envy by teaching “people they have a right to what belongs to others.”

“A large segment of welfare recipients expect to be supported by the government as a matter of right. And if they are entitled to support, it follows that it ought to be enough to satisfy their needs. However much they receive, though, it’s never enough because the ‘rich’ always have so much more,” Kelly wrote.

In another post, Kelly compared Social Security to forced labor.

“The producer is not freely giving value to the welfare recipient or corporation,” Kelly wrote. “And that is what makes this involuntary servitude: The producer is compelled to work for the benefit of another.”

He described those programs as operating by a sleight of hand: “When the recipients are people who have chosen to retire without sufficient assets to support themselves, we call the transfer Social Security and Medicare. And it’s welfare when the recipients are those who don’t create enough to sustain themselves during their working years.”

Kelly also suggested that “maybe God belongs at the apex of the triangle instead of the state.”

He also published a post criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage and a ruling upholding Obamacare, saying, “We, today, no longer have a democracy, much less a republic.”

If we allow this usurpation to pass unremedied, if we do not pick up the gauntlet, then our ancestors and offspring will condemn us as the generation that surrendered the last, best hope of mankind.

 

So. Is it time to go back to the beach, or should we do something about this?

Kelly and Protasiewicz, his progressive opponent, are locked in a close race to replace retiring Justice Patience Roggensack, a conservative.

The stakes of the race, which will decide the ideological makeup of the court, are high for the future of Wisconsin. If Protasiewicz wins, the newly minted liberal majority would likely strike down the state’s ban on abortion and throw out Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative maps. If Kelly wins, the conservative majority could reaffirm the ban and allow gerrymandering to continue.

The court will also be able to decide critical election law cases before, during, and after the 2024 presidential election. Wisconsin, a state that narrowly voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and then for President Joe Biden in 2020, is likely to be one of the most contested battleground states in 2024.

The race is already the most expensive state supreme court election in American history, with $42 million spent.

Prominent political figures on both sides of the aisle have weighed in and endorsed candidates in the race, which is nominally nonpartisan.

In a press release, Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the state’s most powerful Republicans, warned: “Think of the most important conservative policy initiatives that have been enacted over the last few decades in Wisconsin – welfare reform, Act 10, and Right to Work to name just a few – and then realize they could all be repealed by judicial fiat if Justice Dan Kelly does not win the upcoming election for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice. Basic protections for unborn children would also be at grave risk.”

“Judge Janet Protasiewicz is the best candidate to return fairness and impartiality back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I’m proud to support her in this race,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said in February. “Extreme members of the court are more concerned with advancing their own political agenda, not upholding our laws. I know Judge Janet Protasiewicz will bring common sense back to the court.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.