David Prosser

David Thomas Prosser Jr. (born December 24, 1942) is an American jurist and politician who served as Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1995 to 1996, and as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1998 to 2016.

He is currently an advisor to Wisconsin Assembly speaker Robin Vos as Vos seeks a Rationale for impeaching current Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Janet Protasiewicz.

Following his graduation from University of Wisconsin Law School, Prosser worked in Washington as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and as an aide to U.S. Representative Harold Vernon Froehlich.

Returning to Wisconsin, he began a private practice, worked as a district attorney for two years, then served 18 years as a Republican party legislator in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

He was the state house minority leader for six of those years and Speaker of the Assembly for two years.

After graduating from Appleton High School, he attended DePauw University, receiving his B.A. in 1965.

He went on to law school at the University of Wisconsin and received his J.D. in 1968.

Prosser lectured at Indiana University-Indianapolis Law School from 1968 to 1969, before working from 1969 to 1972 in Washington, D.C., as an attorney advisor in the Office of Criminal Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1972, then served as an administrative assistant to U.S. Representative Harold Vernon Froehlich.

Froehlich was a Republican and a former speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, serving his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate impeachment hearings, in the 1973–1974 term, he was one of the few Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Richard Nixon.

Froehlich lost re-election in the Democratic wave of 1974.

Prosser returned to Wisconsin and, after two years in private practice as a self-employed lawyer, he was elected Outagamie County district attorney in the 1976 election, serving from 1977 to 1978.

Prosser represented the Appleton area in the Wisconsin State Assembly as a Republican from 1979 through 1996.

His committee assignments included Criminal Justice and Public Safety and Judiciary.

During his tenure in the Assembly, he served six years as Minority leader and two years as Speaker.

In 1981, he opposed removing criminal penalties on sexual activity and cohabitation between unmarried, consulting adults, though he did express a willingness to repeal the jail terms.

He stated that legalizing sex outside of marriage would increase divorce rates, the number of children born outside of wedlock, welfare payments, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortions.

In 1995, while he was Assembly Speaker, Prosser led the push for the new baseball stadium for the Milwaukee Brewers, saying that Wisconsin had a choice of being either a "big league or bush league" state.

After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House in 1996, Prosser was appointed by Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson to a vacant seat on the state tax appeals board, then in 1998 to a vacant seat on Wisconsin Supreme Court.

In 1996 he ran for the 8th congressional district seat in the U.S. Congress vacated by retiring U.S. Representative Toby Roth.

Prosser won what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described as a "bitter and high-spending" primary, but was defeated in the general election by Democrat Jay W. Johnson.

One month later, Governor Thompson appointed Prosser to the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission where he conducted hearings and ruled on disputes related to state taxation.

In September 1998, Thompson appointed Prosser to a vacant seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, hailing him as a conservative.

In an unusual move, a bipartisan group of 77 of the 132 state legislators sent a letter to Thompson supporting the appointment, describing Prosser as, "learned, thoughtful, and fiercely defensive of our system of law".

He was elected to his first 10-year term without opposition in 2001.

Prosser received media attention in 2010 following verbal altercations with the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and also in June 2011 when allegations were made of a physical altercation between Prosser and fellow associate justice Ann Walsh Bradley that occurred in connection with the union-curbing bill.

A special prosecutor investigated but declined to press criminal charges.

An ethics action against Prosser was recommended by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, however, after three other justices recused themselves from the matter, no further action was taken.

Prosser returned to the spotlight in September 2023, when he emerged as an advisor to Wisconsin Assembly speaker Robin Vos in his attempts to find a Rationale to impeach the newest Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz.

Prosser was born in Chicago, Illinois, to David T. Prosser Sr. and his wife Elizabeth (Patterson) Prosser, and was raised in Appleton, Wisconsin.

In October 2010, Prosser indicated that he supported limiting free online access to Wisconsin trial court records because the information can be misused by employers and landlords, saying, "Some people are actually innocent, and they shouldn't be disadvantaged forever" by the online records.

Opponents of the change argued that restricting free online access may result in private vendors selling the information, and may conflict with Wisconsin's open records law.

Following the decision in Donohoo v. Action Wisconsin Inc., Prosser voted to amend the state's judicial code of conduct to allow judges to decide cases involving their campaign contributors, saying there are various levels of support and a campaign contribution or endorsement "in and of itself does not create so close or special relationship so as to require automatic recusal."

He has also said his policy is not to recuse himself from cases involving lawmakers he has served with in the past unless the case is actually about the lawmakers.

He ran for reelection in April 2011 against little-known Wisconsin assistant attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The race received national attention and was viewed as a referendum on efforts by Republican Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature to curb the union rights of public workers in Wisconsin.

The April 5, 2011, election was too close to call until two days later when the Waukesha County Clerk announced she had erroneously omitted more than 14,000 votes from her earlier tally.

The additional votes gave Prosser a lead of over 7,000 which was sustained by a later recount.

In 2011, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Prosser is a "reliable judicial conservative, but he's also independent", citing an August 2010 Wisconsin Law Journal analysis which concluded "Prosser voted with no justice more than 85% of the time, though he generally combined with three other conservative justices (Michael Gableman, Patience Roggensack, and Annette Ziegler), to form a 4-3 majority on the court. The New York Times said some observers believe that Prosser is a member of a conservative 4-3 bloc on the court.