David Prosser, who served as Wisconsin Assembly speaker and as a state Supreme Court justice, dies
MADISON, Wis. — MADISON, Wis. (AP) — David Prosserwho rose to Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly before an 18-year term on the state Supreme Court that was marked by a heated argument with another justice, has died. He was 81 years old.
Prosser died Sunday after a months-long battle with cancer, his family said in a statement Monday. Prosser, a Republican, has served in the Assembly for 18 years, the last two as speaker, and an equal amount of time on the state Supreme Court. He retired of the court in 2016.
Prosser has been involved in some of Wisconsin’s most controversial political battles, most notably the 2011 law championed by then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most state workers. Prosser ran for re-election that year, turning that contest into something of a referendum on Walker and the proposed law.
Prosser’s narrow victory in April, with 7,006 votes, survived a recount. A few months later, he got into a fight with a liberal judge when they argued in her office about the court ruling that would uphold the anti-union law known as Act 10.
Judge Ann Walsh Bradley accused Prosser of putting his hands around her neck “ in a stranglehold ‘while the judges were discussing the case in June 2011. The court issued a split decision upholding the law, with Prosser siding with the conservative majority.
The incident was investigated, but no charges were filed. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed an ethics complaint against Prosser, but the court lacked a quorum to hear it after the three other conservative justices recused themselves.
In 2023, Prosser and two other retired judges were tapped by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to advise him on whether liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz could be impeached over comments she made while running for a seat in the court. Prosser advised against impeachment and Vos did not pursue it.
Prosser graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School in 1968. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and as a lecturer at the Indiana University-Indianapolis law school.
He was elected to the State Assembly as a Republican in 1978 after a stint as Outagamie County district attorney. A baseball fan, he helped finance Miller Park, the Milwaukee Brewers stadium now known as American Family Field.
After serving nearly two years on the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission, Prosser was appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1998 by then-Gov. Tommy Thompson. Prosser won elections for a ten-year term in 2001 and again in 2011. He retired halfway through that term, in 2016.
Thompson, who was governor when Prosser was speaker of the General Assembly, said in a statement Monday that Prosser “provided common sense solutions to the problems facing our state.”
“I could always count on him to be candid in discussions and results-oriented in action,” Thompson said. “David could count votes and delivered when it mattered.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler said Prosser “profoundly shaped Wisconsin’s legal, legislative and judicial landscape.”
“His exemplary service in all three branches of government demonstrated his unparalleled versatility and commitment to the public interest,” she said.
Prosser’s time on the Supreme Court was marked by his altercation with Bradley and feuds between the conservative and liberal justices, most notably former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.
In 2011, emails emerged showing that Prosser in 2010 used an expletive to describe Abrahamson and threatened to “destroy” her as the justices debated whether to remove conservative-leaning Judge Mike Gableman from a criminal case.
After his retirement, the state Supreme Court was appointed called the Wisconsin Law Library across the street from the Capitol in front of Prosser. But in June, the Wisconsin Supreme Court removed his name in favor of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s first female attorney.