Lawyer who oversaw Trump elector scheme in Wisconsin reappointed to judicial advisory panel

A lawyer who advised Wisconsin Republicans on using fake electors after the 2020 election has been reappointed to a state panel that renders advisory opinions and advice for judges.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the reappointment of attorney Jim Troupis to the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee for a term that runs until March 7, 2026. The court’s four conservative justices supported his reappointment while three liberal justices dissented.

Troupis was the lead Wisconsin attorney for former President Donald Trump’s campaign following Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Troupis oversaw Trump’s partial recount in Dane and Milwaukee Counties, filing a lawsuit that asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory in the state. The court rejected the lawsuit on the day Wisconsin’s actual electors met at the Capitol.

Troupis’ name resurfaced last year when the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol turned its attention to Trump’s use of false electors in Wisconsin and other swing states. The New York Times published a memo Troupis received from Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro laying out the electors’ strategy. Chesebro later joined Troupis in an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Wisconsin’s election results.

Troupis’ involvement in Wisconsin politics predates Trump. For years, he was a go-to expert for Republicans on redistricting, helping them draw the legislative map in 2011 that cemented GOP power for a decade. In 2015, former Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed Troupis to a judgeship on the Dane County Circuit Court, and in 2016, Troupis applied to Walker for a vacancy on the state Supreme Court.

According to the state Supreme Court’s website, the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee “was created to render formal advisory opinions and give informal advice to judges and judicial officers governed by the Code of Judicial Conduct.” The panel includes nine members, including six from the judiciary, one court commissioner, one attorney and one public member. Troupis was recommended for reappointment by the court’s “Appointment Selection Committee,” according to Tom Sheehan, the court’s public information officer.

On the state Supreme Court, Troupis’ appointment was backed by conservative Justices Annette Ziegler, Rebecca Bradley and Patience Roggensack, as well as conservative swing Justice Brian Hagedorn. Liberal Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky voted against Troupis’ reappointment but did not write separately to explain their dissent.