MADISON, WIS. (AP) — David Prosser, who became speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly before serving on the state Supreme Court for eighteen years, during which he got into a heated argument with another justice, has away. He was eighty-one.
After fighting cancer for several months, Prosser passed away on Sunday, according to a statement released by his family on Monday. Prosser, a Republican, was a member of the Assembly for 18 years, including the final two as speaker, and the state Supreme Court for the same length of time.In 2016, he left the court.
Prosser participated in some of Wisconsin’s most controversial political disputes, including the 2011 legislation that was supported by then-Republican Governor Scott Walker and essentially put an end to collective bargaining for the majority of public employees. That year, Prosser’s reelection campaign transformed the election into a kind of referendum on Walker and the proposed legislation.
In April, Prosser narrowly prevailed by 7,006 votes, surviving a recount. He and a liberal justice got into a physical brawl a few months later while they were debating the court’s decision to maintain Act 10, an anti-union law, in her office.
In June 2011, when the justices were deliberating the matter, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Prosser of choking her by placing his hands around her neck. Prosser supported the conservative majority in the court’s split ruling that upheld the statute.
Despite an investigation into the occurrence, no charges were brought. After the three other conservative justices recused themselves, the court lacked a quorum to consider the ethics charge the Wisconsin Judicial Commission had filed against Prosser.
In 2023, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos asked Prosser and two other retired justices to counsel him on whether leftist Justice Janet Protasiewicz could be impeached over remarks she made during her campaign for the court. Vos didn’t pursue it, and Prossera urged against impeachment.
In 1968, Prosser received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he taught at the Indiana University-Indianapolis law school and practiced law for the U.S. Department of Justice.
After serving as the district attorney for Outagamie County, he was elected as a Republican to the state Assembly in 1978. As a baseball enthusiast, he spearheaded the effort to get financing for Miller Park, the current American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers.
In 1998, then-Governor Tommy Thompson appointed Prosser to the Wisconsin Supreme Court after he had served for over two years on the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission. In 2001 and 2011, Prosser was elected to 10-year terms. In 2016, he retired in the middle of that term.
In a statement released on Monday, Thompson, who served as governor during Prosser’s tenure as speaker of the Assembly, stated that Prosser offered practical answers to the problems facing our state.
Thompson stated, “I could always rely on him to be straightforward in conversations and results-oriented in action.” David was able to deliver when it counted and count votes.
According to Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, Prosser had a significant influence on the state’s judicial, legislative, and legal systems.
She claimed that his exceptional service in all three levels of government showed his unmatched adaptability and commitment to the general welfare.
Conflicts between the conservative and liberal justices, particularly with former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, and Prosser’s altercation with Bradley characterized his tenure on the supreme court.
When the justices were debating whether to remove conservative Justice Mike Gableman from a criminal case in 2010, Prosser used an expletive to characterize Abrahamson and threatened to destroy her, according to emails that surfaced in 2011.
The Wisconsin Law Library across the street from the Capitol was dedicated in Prosser’s honor by the state Supreme Court when he retired. However, in June, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck his name down in favor of the state’s first female attorney, Lavinia Goodell.
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