Jim Troupis

James Roberts Troupis (born September 30, 1953) is an American lawyer and Republican political operative from Dane County, Wisconsin.

James Troupis was born in 1953 and raised in Mendota, Illinois.

During Jim's childhood, his father was mayor of the city.

He earned his bachelor's degree from the Northwestern University, then immediately continued his education at the Northwestern University School of Law, earning his J.D. in 1978.

While attending law school, he was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology and clerked for Howard C. Ryan, then a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

From 1979 to 1987, he practiced law in Mendota in partnership with his father, in a law firm known as Troupis & Troupis.

He became involved in Republican politics during these years.

He was elected mayor of Mendota in 1985, and was director of state representative Judy Koehler's campaign for United States Senate in 1986.

Koehler lost badly in the general election.

The following year, Troupis moved to Dane County, Wisconsin, where he became a partner in the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP.

He was one of the lead attorneys for the Republican Party in 1992 litigation over redistricting, culminating in the federal court case Prosser v. Wisconsin State Elections Board, 793 F. Supp.

859 (1992). The named plaintiff in that case was Troupis' client, David Prosser Jr., then the Republican minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

Troupis again represented Republican legislators in litigation for the 2000 redistricting cycle.

In this cycle, he petitioned for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take jurisdiction over the redistricting case, hoping this time to avoid a map drawn by the federal court.

In 2001, Troupis applied for appointment to a newly created federal judgeship in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

That appointment ultimately went to William C. Griesbach.

In the case of Jensen v. Wisconsin State Elections Board, 249 Wis. 2d 706 (2002), the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined the case in a per curiam opinion.

The maps were eventually redrawn by a federal court panel, in the case Baumgart v. Wendelberger.

Through the following decade, Troupis was involved in more litigation on behalf of the state Republican Party.

He represented state senator Joe Leibham in a recount of his senate election in 2002.

Leibham sought federal intervention to set uniform counting standards, and prevailed by 46 votes.

In 2007, Troupis represented recently elected conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Annette Ziegler after she was accused of violating the state code of judicial ethics.

In her ten years as a circuit judge, Ziegler had ruled on more than 30 cases in which she or her husband had a direct financial interest.

Ziegler settled the case with the state Ethics Board for $17,000, and Troupis then represented her at a hearing before three state Court of Appeals judges assigned to adjudicate the ethics complaint.

Troupis reassured the judges that she would not make that mistake again.

The panel ultimately recommended a reprimand; the Wisconsin Supreme Court then voted to reprimand her in a 5–1 decision.

In 2008, Troupis represented the state Republican Party as an intervenor in the state Attorney General's lawsuit to force the state elections board to implement more strict voter identification rules before the 2008 United States presidential election.

The lawsuit was dismissed in October 2008.

The next year, he represented former state Veterans Affairs Secretary John Scocos in a lawsuit against the state Veterans Affairs Board over his firing.

Discovery in the lawsuit revealed that the board had agreed to fire him a week before taking action and had coordinated their communications with the governor's office, technically a violation of the state open meetings laws.

He remained at that firm until 2010, handling significant corporate litigation.

After 2010, he practiced in his own law firm, the Troupis Law Office.

Shortly after moving to Wisconsin, Troupis became a prominent lawyer for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

In 2011, Troupis represented David Prosser again.

The former Assembly speaker was, by then, a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Earlier, he served one year as a Wisconsin circuit court judge in Dane County (2015–2016) and was mayor of Mendota, Illinois (1985–1987).

He was an attorney for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign, and was involved in the efforts to overturn the election results.

He was also involved in the plot to produce fraudulent electoral votes to challenge the legitimate electoral votes at the January 6 certification.

He has been charged with conspiracy to utter as legitimate a forged document.

He is also a member of Wisconsin's Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee (2021–present), which gives informal advisory opinions to state judges on compliance with the code of judicial conduct.