Supreme Court candidate Lisa Neubauer stopped listing business customers on ethics form years ago
MADISON - A decade before she launched her bid for state Supreme Court, Judge Lisa Neubauer stopped making public a list of customers for her husband’s cleaning supply business.
Her opponent's campaign adviser argued that practice makes it more difficult to determine whether Neubauer has a conflict in handling cases. Neubauer's campaign manager said she is following the state's disclosure laws.
In 2008 and 2009, Neubauer included on her state ethics form the names of hundreds of businesses and government entities that bought supplies from Kranz Inc., a firm owned by her husband, Jeff.
She stopped the practice in 2010, stating on an ethics form that her husband was no longer providing her with the information.
Neubauer faces Judge Brian Hagedorn in the April 2 election for Supreme Court. Both sit on the District 2 Court of Appeals in Waukesha.
Neubauer has won backing from liberals and Hagedorn from conservatives. The winner will replace liberal Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who is not seeking re-election.
"For nearly a decade Lisa Neubauer withheld the names of clients which paid her family millions; money which she then has used to fund her Supreme Court campaign,” said a statement from Hagedorn campaign adviser Stephan Thompson. “This raises serious ethical questions about Neubauer's personal judgment. What else is she hiding? The voters deserve to know."
Neubauer campaign manager Tyler Hendricks said Neubauer has followed the state's ethics laws with her disclosures.
"Judge Neubauer has always been transparent, fair, honest and impartial,” Hendricks said in a statement. "That's why she has the support of over 325 judges and dozens of law enforcement officials from both parties, from across the state."
Neubauer’s ethics forms from 2008 and 2009 showed Kranz sold its products to hundreds of customers, including Abbott Laboratories, Meriter Hospital, Milwaukee’s city government and numerous state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Transportation.
Her husband wanted to stop providing the information because of concerns that competitors might try to pick off customers, said Richard Brown, who was chief judge for Neubauer's court at the time.
Brown, who is supporting Neubauer in her run for Supreme Court, said Neubauer consulted with him at the time and he told her that under state ethics rules she did not have to make the information public.
Neubauer filled out an ethics form to address the issue, checking a box next to a statement that says, “I have asked my spouse for this information, and my spouse has refused to provide it.”
That form has been available for public officials for years, according to the state Ethics Commission.
Jeff Neubauer sold Kranz in 2017.
First ad of the race
On Tuesday, Hagedorn launched the first television ad of the Supreme Court campaign with a spot about adopting a daughter who was born addicted to opiates and went through withdrawal in the arms of Hagedorn's wife, Christina.
"Adopting Lily has brought home the opioid crisis and how it affects families in such significant ways," Hagedorn says in the ad. "We need to show compassion, but we also need to hold people accountable, and that’s exactly what I’ll do on the Wisconsin Supreme Court."
Hagedorn's campaign said it is initially spending $50,000 on the ad, which will air in Milwaukee and Green Bay and run on digital platforms.