{"id":4657,"date":"2023-08-03T13:45:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T13:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4657"},"modified":"2023-08-03T13:56:35","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T13:56:35","slug":"liberal-justices-wanted-their-dem-political-operative-to-run-state-courts-2-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4657","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Justices Wanted Their Dem Political Operative to Run State Courts, 2 Sources Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/liberal-justices-wanted-their-dem-political-operative-to-run-state-courts-2-sources-say\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s liberal Supreme Court justices initially wanted to pick their Democratic political campaign operative, Sachin Chheda, to run the state Courts System, two sources told Wisconsin Right Now as bipartisan criticism<\/a> continues to grow over their sudden firing of respected state Courts Director Randy Koschnick.<\/p>\n

In fact, Sachin Chheda is probably the state\u2019s highest-profile Democratic political operative. According to his bio<\/a>, Chheda\u2019s only court-related experience, if you can call it that, appears to be serving as deputy director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a massive responsibility; Koschnick had years of experience as a chief judge, judge, and lawyer. \u201cThe Director of State Courts is the top non-judicial officer of the state court system and has authority and responsibility for the overall management of the court system,\u201d the Supreme Court\u2019s public information officer says.<\/p>\n

Chheda was a senior advisor to new liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz\u2019s campaign, according to Up North News.<\/a> According to the website of Nation Consulting, which he left in August 2023, Sachin Chheda \u201coversaw winning campaigns for WI Supreme Court Justices Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky, WI Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, and then-Superintendent Tony Evers, as well as dozens of local judges, aldermen, school board members and others.\u201d He has also served<\/a> as political director for Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson and worked for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.<\/p>\n

He also worked for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, and served two terms as Chair of the Board of Directors for NARAL Pro-Choice America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

#NewProfilePic<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/67CVUt9R7e<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sachin Chheda (@skchheda) April 5, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The liberal justices who form the court\u2019s majority are Karofsky, Dallet, Protasiewicz, and Ann Walsh-Bradley.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the father of sometime conservative state Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, Sam Hagedorn, shared a screenshot of comments he said were made online by Sachin K. Chheda calling people \u201cnutty hateful Republicans\u201d and saying \u201cTrump-lovers hate the real diverse rainbow of America.\u201d He also wrote Hagedorn\u2019s dad, \u201cgotta cheat and lie to win, you\u2019re lucky your stolen Supreme Court seat was there for you!\u201d and accused Hagedorn\u2019s dad of \u201cinsane hateful ideology,\u201d calling him \u201clittle Sammy,\u201d according to the screenshot.<\/p>\n

\"sachin
Sachin chheda posts per sam hagedorn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chheda has also tweeted <\/a>that former Republican Gov. Scott Walker is a \u201cclown,\u201d Dan O\u2019Donnell a misinformation spreader<\/a>, posted questions about Jennifer Dorow\u2019s son, and wrote, \u201cDiane Hendricks and Dick Uihlein represent the election-denier, Putin-loving, pro-Covid-death insane wing of the Republican Party and Dan Kelly is their guy.\u201d Among many other partisan posts.<\/p>\n

We wrote to all four of the liberal justices and asked them for comment about the sources\u2019 claims about Chheda. None of them responded, despite being given hours to do so. We contacted Karofsky, Dallet, Protasiewicz, and Ann Walsh-Bradley.<\/p>\n

We also filed open records requests with each of the justices for their emails and text messages relating to Koschnick, the state Courts Director position, and Sachin Chheda, to further check the claims. We have yet to receive responses.<\/p>\n

Chheda\u2019s Twitter profile picture<\/a> is a photo of him with Janet Protasiewicz. We also wrote Sachin Chheda through his Nation Consulting email and Twitter page and did not hear back.<\/p>\n

The choice of the well-known partisan operative was suddenly scuttled, the sources say. The exact date that shift occurred is not clear, although it was recently, according to one of the sources. However, the four liberal justices received strong and possibly unexpected blowback when Koschnick, a conservative who once ran for state Supreme Court but kept politics out of the non-partisan post, went public Monday with their out-of-the-blue decision to fire him, for which they have refused to give a reason.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The state Senate Judiciary & Public Safety Committee Chair, Van Wanggaard called the firing<\/a>, which they formalized by letter on Wednesday, a violation of the law, state Constitution, court rules, and their oaths. The court\u2019s two conservative justices, including Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, have decried <\/a>the action as an abuse of power, reckless conduct, and a political purge. Madison\u2019s former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said <\/a>the liberal majority was off to a \u201cbad start\u201d and had engaged in a \u201cpartisan witch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

As that criticism surrounding Koschnick\u2019s firing erupted, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the liberal justices were going to name Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Audrey Skwierawski, a Scott Walker appointee, as interim director, and they did so in a press release<\/a> on Wednesday. They have not publicly revealed their permanent replacement. Some saw that choice as an effort to mute criticism over the Koschnick firing.<\/p>\n

\"audrey
Audrey skwierawski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both the state Supreme Court and the State Courts Director position are supposed to be non-partisan.<\/p>\n

However, the consideration of Democratic political operative Chheda at all, according to the sources, is a jaw-dropper because the state Courts Director position is supposed to be politics-free. Chheda was the desired choice until recently, the sources said.<\/p>\n

The two sources, who gave us the information independent of one another, did not want their names used because they fear retaliation will ensue from the four liberal justices. We know their identities, however.<\/p>\n

On July 26, Chheda wrote on Twitter that he was leaving his long-time job at Nation Consulting. \u201cAfter 17 years, I\u2019m leaving @NationPR next week,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIs it a mid-life crisis? Is it just the changing of the seasons? Is it just part of the celebration of #SachinAt50? Who knows?!\u201d<\/p>\n

He wrote that he wasn\u2019t \u201cmoving, and I\u2019m not going away, just\u2026 doing something different.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m going to travel. I\u2019m going to work on some new business projects (not consulting, and not doing campaigns!) And down the road, I\u2019m going to take new paths and take advantage of everything life has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same day, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported <\/a>that Chheda was also quitting as Cavalier Johnson\u2019s political director even though Johnson is up for re-election in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/liberal-justices-wanted-their-dem-political-operative-to-run-state-courts-2-sources-say\/ Wisconsin\u2019s liberal Supreme Court justices initially wanted to pick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":4659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4662,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions\/4662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}