Meet Ed Fallone, Candidate For Wisconsin Supreme Court

MILWAUKEE, WI — Wisconsin's spring 2020 spring primary will be held Tuesday, Feb. 18 to whittle the candidates down in advance of the general election.

Ed Fallone, a Law Professor at Marquette University Law School will be on the ballot on Feb. 18 as a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Fallone will be one of three people on the ballot. The top two vote-getters advance to the April 7 general election.

Fallone cites his legal experience and life experience as his two biggest strengths for serving on the state's highest court.

"The Court works better when it has a variety of types of Justices who bring experiences across a wider cross-section of legal practice," Fallone told Patch. "As a Constitutional Law professor, an experienced criminal defense lawyer, someone who has represented giant Fortune 100 corporations as well as the owners of small family businesses, and a community leader who has helped working families and immigrants navigate our legal system, I will bring a broad base of knowledge to our state’s highest court."

Name: Ed Fallone

Age: 55

Hometown: Milwaukee

Occupation: Law Professor at Marquette University Law School

Political Experience:

I first ran for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2013, pledging to restore integrity to a Court beset by infighting and allegations of personal assault. Many voters agreed with me, and I received over 360,000 votes. Since then, partisan political fighting among the Justices has gotten worse, and judicial election campaigns for the Supreme Court now regularly descend into unfounded character attacks on the integrity of candidates. This needs to stop. So last March I became the very first candidate to announce that I was running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020.

Leading issues and how I would address them if elected:

I am running because the Justices serving on our Wisconsin Supreme Court reflect too narrow a set of legal experiences and too narrow a set of life experiences to truly represent all the people of Wisconsin. With the retirement of Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the Court lost the perspective of a law professor who was a strong advocate for holding the political branches of our government accountable to the voters. In the ten years since Justice Louis Butler left the bench, the Court has lacked a member who has substantial experience as a criminal defense attorney. Significantly, the Court currently does not any member who has focused on serving persons of modest means – such as working families and immigrants. And there are currently no racial or ethnic minorities represented on our Court.

A Court that openly engages in partisan political infighting is not serving the people of Wisconsin. We need to return to an independent Court, and we need our elections to focus on the qualifications of the candidates and not attack ads. And we won’t make the Supreme Court better by electing more Justices with the same narrow experience – trial judges who are former prosecutors. The work of the Wisconsin Supreme Court extends far beyond the criminal law.

Every term, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decides important cases involving our constitutional rights, the protection of the environment, the civil rights of racial and ethnic minorities, business law, and contract interpretation. The Court works better when it has a variety of types of Justices who bring experiences across a wider cross-section of legal practice. As a Constitutional Law professor, an experienced criminal defense lawyer, someone who has represented giant Fortune 100 corporations as well as the owners of small family businesses, and a community leader who has helped working families and immigrants navigate our legal system, I will bring a broad base of knowledge to our state’s highest court. In addition, I will be the first Latino Justice in our State’s history. And I pledge to continue my fight to end the politicization of the Court and restore its former independence.

An interesting fact about me:

I served as President of the Latino Community Center, which was nationally recognized for its anti-violence initiatives for at-risk youth in Milwaukee. As President of Centro Legal, I led a nonprofit legal services organization that made lawyers affordable to middle class families who would otherwise go to the courthouse alone. While a Trustee at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, I helped to establish a Legal Services for Immigrants program that helps immigrant families facing deportation. As President of the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association, I led the organization in opposing English-Only laws. And as a Board Member of Voces de la Frontera Action, I served an organization focused on supporting public education, jobs that pay a living wage, and the civil rights of immigrants in our society.

I have also served as a volunteer mentor for Latina women professionals through a program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and have advocated on behalf of DREAMER students within the Marquette University administration. This is how I have chosen to give back to my community over the course of my legal career.