JoAnne Kloppenburg

Wisconsin Supreme Court justice N. Patrick Crooks announced on September 16, 2015 that he would not seek re-election to the court in 2016. He died five days later. Governor Walker appointed judge Rebecca Bradley to fill the remainder of his term. Kloppenburg, Bradley and Joe Donald each announced their candidacy for the seat in the 2016 election, with Bradley as the sole Republican and Kloppenburg and Donald as Democrats.

In the April 2012 Wisconsin General Election, Kloppenburg was elected to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.

On April 5, 2011, Kloppenburg faced incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, Jr. in an election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as she placed second to Prosser in the February primary. Although the election was ostensibly nonpartisan, the race between Prosser (a Republican) and Kloppenburg (a Democrat) received considerable partisan attention due to the 2011 Wisconsin protests regarding the budget repair bill, which was considered likely to come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as well as several controversies regarding the incumbent.

On April 15, the canvass was completed, showing that Prosser had a lead of 7,316 votes, a margin of 0.488%. Because the margin of victory was less than 0.5%, Kloppenburg was legally entitled to a recount. Following the recount, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, certified Prosser as the winner by a margin of 7,004. On May 31, 2011 Kloppenburg conceded the election.

In the February 16 primary, Bradley edged Kloppenburg 44.7%-43.2%, moving the two of them on to the general election. In a repeat of 2011, the race became extremely partisan after the primary, with major focus given to articles Bradley had written in the Marquette University student newspaper in 1992, when she was 21, attacking AIDS patients, drug users, and supporters of abortion on demand. Kloppenburg attacked Bradley's student writings, stating: "There is no statute of limitations on hate. Rebecca Bradley's comments are as abhorrent and disturbing today as they were in 1992 as people were dying in huge numbers from AIDS."

Next, she attended law school at the University of Wisconsin, while interning for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Brandriff Crabb. In 1989, Kloppenburg joined the Wisconsin Department of Justice, eventually serving under four different Wisconsin Attorneys General, two of each party. Since 1991, she has been in the environmental protection unit, enforcing the state's environmental laws. She has also taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School since 1990 and is currently a mentor with the Dane County Bar Association, an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor, and a member of her neighborhood association board.

After graduation, Kloppenburg joined the Peace Corps and became a rural development planner in Botswana from 1976-1979. She intended to be there for two years, but the government of Botswana asked her to stay for another year afterwards to direct rural development for the entire country.

Kloppenburg was born JoAnne Fishman to Dr. Elihu Fishman and his wife. She attended high school in Connecticut, and attended Yale University with a scholarship, a year after it began accepting women for study in 1969. She received her B.A. in Russian studies from there, and went to the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University afterwards, originally intending to eventually become an ambassador. Instead, she shifted her focus to third world development, and received her Master of Public Affairs degree in 1976.

JoAnne F. Kloppenburg (born September 5, 1953) is a judge of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, serving since 2012 in the Madison-based District IV. Kloppenburg was previously an assistant attorney general in the Wisconsin Department of Justice and was a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2011 and 2016.