Walker Narrows List Of State Supreme Court Hopefuls To 3

Gov. Scott Walker announced the three finalists for the soon-to-be vacant state Supreme Court seat on Wednesday morning.

State appeals court Judges Mark Gundrum and Thomas Hruz, who were both appointed to their current seats by Walker, and Milwaukee attorney Daniel Kelly are the finalists for the seat, which will be vacated by retiring Justice David Prosser on July 31.

Gundrum was a Republican lawmaker from 1998 until 2010, representing New Berlin. As a lawmaker, he co-authored Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hruz was a lawyer in Milwaukee and clerk for Prosser and U.S. Appeals Court Judge John Coffey prior to his appointment to the court.

Kelly is currently in private practice in Waukesha. He represented Republican lawmakers in a 2012 lawsuit challenging their 2011 redistricting maps. He is also friends with sitting Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, who won a 10-year term on the court in April.

A three-person committee comprised of the governor’s chief of staff, Rich Zipperer, his former deputy legal counsel, Andrew Hitt, and the chairman of the governor’s Judicial Selection Advisory Committee, Michael Brennan, recommended the finalists. The governor will interview each finalist before late July.

This appointment will be the governor’s second to the seven-member court in less than a year. The appointee will not be up for election until 2020. A choice of any of the three finalists, culled from an applicant pool of 11, will preserve the court’s 5-2 conservative majority.

The governor’s office plans to announce the pick by July 31.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story featuring Associated Press content has been updated with original reporting.