Pat Roggensack's road to the Supreme Court has been anything but typical. She completed law school at the age of 40. She worked in private practice, then ran for the state Supreme Court in 1995 with no political experience or contacts. She finished fourth out of five, but jumped into a race for the Court of Appeals the following year at the urging of former Gov. Tommy Thompson. That time she won, and decided to try once more for the high court using the lessons she learned from the first time around.
After edging out Barron County Circuit Court Judge Edward Brunner in the April 1 general election, Roggensack wants to change some of the way the state's high court conducts business. Roggensack, who was backed by many Republicans and often described as the conservative in the race, says the liberal-conservative moniker doesn't always fit when it comes to interpreting judicial opinions. "I'm going to try real hard to make the court much more cohesive," Roggensack said. To do so, she advocates greater communication between justices and also hopes to see shorter -- and more -- Supreme Court opinions issued.
WisPolitics Associate Editor Melanie Fonder interviewed Roggensack on April 7, just short of one week after her election. She takes office in August, replacing the retiring William Bablitch.
Fonder: How has (it) been (since the election)?
Roggensack: It's nice to be back to my day job and doing some regular things besides running around the country.
Fonder: Now, did you keep up your full schedule the whole time ?
Roggensack: I kept up my full schedule, but I was not as productive as I would have been. The last, probably month, it was really hard. I mean I got things out that had to get out. Early in the campaign, it worked out fine. I just worked every Saturday and Sunday and worked at night, but then later on, I was campaigning on the weekends, too, so it was harder.
Fonder: Did you make it to all the counties?
Roggensack: I made it to all of the counties at least once and some, many, many, many times. Milwaukee, I was there at least a couple of times.
Fonder: We know some of the details of your story, but I want to start there. What made you decide to go to law school when you did? Were you always going to go back?
Roggensack: Oh sure, I was always going to go back. I was going to continue my education after I graduated and then I got married. My husband was in school, so I went to work and he was a lot closer to being done than I was. At that time, I would have gone back in biology and genetics was my focus at the moment. But you know, somebody had to go to work. Well then by the time that I could go back to school, the money for research had dried up. And I don't know - how money used to work -
you got grants from the NIH. If you got a grant, you could do your research. If you didn't get a grant, you did what I did: you worked in somebody else's lab on their projects, which was fun to do. But it's a job - it's not what you want to do forever. You'd like to proceed on your own ideas. And that dried up and as it dried up, I got to know some people who were involved in law, were lawyers, and the work seemed very interesting to me. But you know I had so much science and math and stuff,
I had just zero in anything political science-wise.
Fonder: Your undergraduate was biology then?
Roggensack: Biology. So when I could go back to school - when our kids were old enough that I felt that I had a significant amount of discretionary time that I could spend on something other than the kids, I was interested in law, but I didn't know if I'd like it or not. So I took a class in constitutional law from David Adamany, who used to be the chairman of the political science department here at the school. A phenomenal teacher - he has a Harvard Law degree, taught constitutional law every bit as good as I had it when I went to law school and Gordon Baldwin taught it then, who's a very good teacher. And I just loved it so then I went the next year to law school.
Fonder: You've mentioned that you took the "junk cases" when you got out.
Roggensack: Everybody does. I didn't say "junk cases" - that's his word. What I said was I took was what nobody else wanted to do. And any young lawyer does that when they start out. You do collections work, and small claims. Some of the cases, like guardian ad litem work, is not junk work, I continued to do that the whole time I was in practice for 16 and a half years.
Fonder: What firm were you with?
Roggensack: I was with Ross and Stevens and then it merged with DeWitt Porter. But when I first started out, I started out by myself. Because the only job offers I got were to do things other than litigation and I really wanted to try litigation. After going to school and waiting that long.
Fonder: Did you go full-time?
Roggensack: Oh, sure.
Fonder: How did you meet (campaign manager) Brandon (Scholz)?
Roggensack: Oh, I met Brandon in 1994 or '95. I ran for the spot on the Supreme Court that Ann Walsh Bradley has, never had been involved in politics.of course. ... I met him when he was Scott Klug's chief of staff, and I could see that I didn't know what I was doing. And I could see very quickly that he did and I tried to hire him, but he wasn't interested.
Fonder: What sort of things did you learn from that?
Roggensack: I learned that I had no idea how to run a political campaign. I mean, it's a very different task than doing the work that you're elected to do. It's a very different task. I could see that he was smart, I could see that he was ethical. He's also a lot of fun. So I tried to hire him, but he wasn't interested in being hired by the Roggensack campaign. It was clear to everyone but me that we were sinking into this morass. I ran until we went through the primary and I was fourth in a field of five. But I didn't do too bad - I still got about 45,000 votes - not too bad for somebody who didn't know what she was doing. But I met a lot of people who were political. I didn't know anybody who was political before. All my discretionary time I had been spent working on a nonprofit and that's still what I do with my discretionary time.
Fonder: So what made you run that time in the first place?
Roggensack: Well, I was talking to a friend in La Crosse trying to get him interested in helping me get somebody else to run and he said, 'You know, you're always so interested in judicial races, why don't you run yourself?' And I thought, 'Well, maybe I will.' Because I didn't know what was entailed. And then I talked to my law partners, and that's always dangerous because they always think you're wonderful.Wanting the job is very different than being able to put together what's necessary to get
it, which I learned from the first time around.
Fonder: Then after (the first Supreme Court election attempt in 1995) is when you met Tommy Thompson?
Roggensack: You know, I tried to see him the first time. He would not see me. I never met him and then after that race was over, Judge (Paul) Gartzke, who had the seat that I have now, decided not to run. I went to Dennis Markos' house - Dennis and Carol Markos are real good friends of ours, and he is a friend of Tommy's, too - and I walked in the door and he said, 'The governor wants to see you right away,' and I said, 'Oh, right, and I got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you, Dennis.' Because Dennis was always supposed to get me this appointment because I knew they were friends. ...And I thought he was kidding me because we kid each other all the time. He and Carol were doing a benefit for A Very Special Arts, which is one of her favorite charities, so we were there for brunch and we were only there about 20 minutes and the governor walked in and said, 'I have to see you right away.' So he urged me to run. Frankly, I have thought many times 'How did that ever come about?' because he didn't know me from anything. I really think Dennis put a bee in his bonnet, but I've never gotten Dennis to admit it yet.
Fonder: When did you decide to run this time?
Roggensack: This time, I think I started in July, around the first part of July.
Fonder: As your involvement in politics has grown, what about your husband's?
Roggensack: He's very private. He would very much like to be less involved than he is. He's been a great helper - he helped put up all those crazy huge signs all over the state, and now he's taking them down. He was my driver when I got tired in the campaign. He was a big helper to me, but he is a very private person. He's not into politics.
Fonder: I'm not sure how much you can talk about the cases coming up, but what about this case with the caucus scandal and Jensen ties?
Roggensack: That's very interesting that that would come up because Scott Jensen's committee gave me $200 in 1995. That's probably less than one-tenth of one percent of what we raised and spent on the campaign for the election. It isn't even a blip on the radar screen. It's a very modest donation. It's a very nice donation, I was pleased to have it, but that's something that was put in this campaign when my opponent was trying to start throwing a little mud at the end of the campaign. It's just an attempt at mud throwing, if you look at it and think about it, we elect our judges and the money's got to come from somewhere. So, is everyone that gave me $200 now someone whose case I couldn't hear? No, I'm afraid not.
Fonder: The spending overall this time was less than the last time there was an open seat. What do you think about the spending overall having gone through it? You used a lot of your own money.
Roggensack: I used my own money because we didn't take any special interest money. If I had taken any special interest money I wouldn't have to use my own money.
Fonder: What about someone who doesn't have their own money to use?
Roggensack: You know, I didn't have a problem with special interest money. Judge Brunner had a problem with it. And he thought you were tainted by it, and it got to be such an issue and it's a legitimate way to give, that I said, 'OK, if that's an issue, let's take it off the table, and I won't take it either.' Then at the end, he ended up taking independent expenditures. You know, he said he couldn't control people, but when I asked people not to do it, they didn't do it. He refused to ask them not to do and they did it. It's clear you have some control over it - you may not know what they're doing - but you can send a signal not to do it and it doesn't happen if you ask them.
So I basically played it straight and said I wouldn't take any and I really stuck to that so I had to use my own money. Judge Brunner could have used his own money. He makes more than $100,000 a year. He lives in Barron County; I bet he's got to be one of the highest-paid people in the county. We all spend our discretionary money on whatever we believe is important and you know, if I hadn't spent it, I would have had to say a whole bunch of people are not important for me to communicate with. Because that's what you need the money for - you use it to communicate. And I really think every single voter in the whole state is important.
Fonder: Only about one in five people voted.
Roggensack: I think it's too bad. But that's typical in these (spring Supreme Court) elections.
Fonder: Can you talk a little about the gambling lawsuit Republicans have?
Roggensack: I don't have any idea about that. That was filed in the Supreme Court, that was not filed in this court, there's no way I can talk about it. I don't what it's about, I haven't seen the papers. I read the newspapers just kind of like you do, too.
Fonder: We have a majority of women now on the Supreme Court. Can you talk about what that means?
Roggensack: Since we have two sexes, and we have seven people, there's got to be a majority of somebody, right? I don't think sex played a role in this race at all. If it did, it was so low-key I didn't pick it up and I don't think Judge Brunner picked up on it either. I really don't think it entered into it. I do think it's a plus for women that sex is no longer an issue, that they compete on their own two feet and it's not a problem to be a woman.
Fonder: What about more politically. When a man is assertive, he's seen as tough, but a woman gets called a name.
Roggensack: I think it's always a problem for women and how long it will be a problem, I'm not sure. But the world, particularly to those people who have positions opposite to the one you're taking, are not fond of assertive women. Somehow they don't the same offense to assertive men. But it's still there, absolutely.
Fonder: Anything particular that happened to you?
Roggensack: I think there are times when it's reflected in the reporter's choice of verbs that they use when I speak. One particular reporter, who shall remain anonymous but you can figure it out, said I clucked and I preached. Now would you ever say a man clucked and he preached? I doubt it very much. That kind of thing shows up, I think, as their gender bias. But in my view, that's their problem; it's not my problem.
Fonder: Another issue that came up a lot is that the court will now be 'conservative.'
Roggensack: You know, I don't think it will. I'm going to try real hard to make the court much more cohesive. I think a lot of the splits we see in the court are not liberal-conservative, though that's an easy way to separate them; it doesn't apply to all the splits. I think sometimes it's just personality-driven. You'll find Justice (William) Bablitch on the same side with Justice (N. Patrick) Crooks repetitively, and Justice Bablitch is touted as a liberal and Justice Crooks as a conservative. Why are they on the same side? Because they talk and they communicate well with each other and the difference they see in an issue, they're able to work out together. Some of the splits on the court are because people aren't working as closely together as I think they have the capability of doing, and I hope to help them work better together. I really think a court that (shows a) 7-0 voice as often as possible serves the public the very best and that you shouldn't take up dissents or concurrences unless you really worked hard to get one opinion and you simply can't make it work.
Fonder: How do you that? Just communication?
Roggensack: Yes. You talk to your colleagues more, you try to work on parts of the opinion that you could join if it were changed, you try to be flexible if you're the authoring judge so that - you know, sometimes you can say a rule of law three different ways - and one will please you, and one will please me, but maybe the third one we both can agree on. So you give up on the way you'd like it, and I give up on the way I'd like it and we say it in the third way. I think that serves the public better because then there's one rule to follow and not yours and not mine and then they have to figure out where the next case goes. I look at appellate opinions very much as public assistance opinions. That's a major function. And it's the greatest assistance to the public when decisions are clear and they are the most clear when you've got a 7-0 opinion. If you kind of look at it that way, we do that around here all the time. I think I've dissented 12 times in almost seven years.
Fonder: How many cases is that?
Roggensack: .Well, more than a thousand cases. It's important to focus on the public when you're doing your job and if you do, I think you get a different result than if you focus it on Pat Roggensack and what she has to say about every issue that comes up.
Fonder: What are you other goals?
Roggensack: I want the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court to work as an appellate team. I think that the Court of Appeals could help the Supreme Court identify in a more cost-efficient and time-efficient manner, particularly in areas of kids and families. The Supreme Court never takes those cases, and those cases need help and our court (can) help the Supreme Court identify which of those would be best for it to review. But we have to work as a team. Right now, if we certify something to the Supreme Court, they either say yes or no. We have no idea why they choose to take it or why they don't. If we got together and looked at areas of law that don't serve the law because the rule of law is not clear, we would both know - this court and that court - what our goal is. . .
I don't think a lot of ideas that can come out of this court have ever been presented up there. And that's not that I'm going to go up there and change the way they're doing business all together. But I've got some ideas, and I think that everyone on that court is a dedicated public servant and it'll be time to put new fresh air into the court a little bit. After 25 years, I think it's time to look at whether these two courts could work in a different fashion than they have been for the last 25 years and I think the way you determine that is by looking at the public interest's, and if you serve the public interest's better by doing business a little differently then I think that's what you do.
Fonder: What is that you love about the law?
Roggensack: I like the public service; I also like the intellectual challenge of figuring out a legal problem that is fair to the people in front of you that takes a long look at the law so the people that come later can have a better understanding of what their rights and obligations are. I love to write; it's very satisfying to get your thoughts together in a clear, concise and focused way. You must have the same thing when you write an article - you write it and rewrite it - so get you it focused and kind of like a stone, you polish it and polish it. I do the same thing with my opinions. I dictate them all and then I swish them down so they get shorter and shorter and tighter and tighter. But I like that - I like that challenge of trying to look ahead and also not to say it too broadly because you don't know what other things may come up off to the side. If you make a big broad ruling, you may be deciding things you're not aware of. As an appellate judge you try to solve things that you are aware of in a perfected, focused way. And it's a real challenge, intellectually.
Fonder: How long does one decision take?
Roggensack: It depends. I can sometimes write a decision in a half a day and then the next two days polish it up and then it's ready to go to my colleagues for their review. Sometimes it takes me two weeks to do one opinion. It just depends on the opinion. Sometimes I can do them in - the whole thing - I just dictate it and I read it and make a few changes and it goes. Other times I polish it and polish it and something is bugging me about it, it's not quite hitting me right.
Fonder: Do you think there's anything major that will change in terms of your colleagues?
Roggensack: No - I don't think anything much will change. There are seven on the court that you communicate with and we have three on a panel here. In some ways it's easier because if I get an opinion from Judge (Margaret) Vergeront and there's a part that bothers me, but I like it, I'll just go down to talk to her and say can we fix this or this and we talk about it and then we fix it to satisfy me, and then we go to the other judge. ... You have a couple of more steps to go through to satisfy that job at the other court. But I think it'll be an interesting challenge.
We write a lot of opinions here. I write an average of 55 a year, so that's a little better than four a month. I would like the Supreme Court to do two a month, and right now they're doing a little better than one a month. I would like to pick up the pace a little bit and I don't think that's unrealistic if you look at the areas of law that need attention.
We'll see. It's not that they're not working hard - they just have a different focus. They write very long opinions and very few opinions. I would like to write shorter opinions and more opinions. I just tend to think, you write for the public, the public doesn't read 100 pages. ..
