Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Yadira Rein Announces Candidacy to Retain Her Seat
However, Judge Rein touts the endorsement she received from Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Gregory Gill, Jr. - who has yet to publicly denunciate the racist conduct of his former campaign manager.
Less than a year after being appointed to the bench by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Yadira Rein has announced her candidacy to retain her position. According to her campaign website, she has garnered support from a number of elected officials serving in both the legislative and judicial branches of state government.
However, one of those elected officials is none other than Wisconsin Court of Appeals—District Three Judge Gregory Gill, Jr., who has yet to publicly denunciate—and dissociate himself from—the racist conduct of his former campaign manager, Landis Holdorf. (Disclosure: I was one of two candidates who ran against Judge Gill, Jr., in the 2021 spring election for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals—District Three.)
Judge Rein’s decision to accept Judge Gill, Jr.’s endorsement sheds light on the bleak state of affairs in Wisconsin’s court system: Far too often, it’s more important to state court judges to be continually elected than to aspire to champion the rousing ideals which underpin Wisconsin’s judicial system.
Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Gill, Jr., Hires an Extreme Nationalist as His Campaign Manager—and Doesn’t Look Back on His Way to Victory
Just days before officially announcing his candidacy for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in early December 2020, Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Gill, Jr., made the consequential decision to hire Holdorf—who had worked as a field organizer and senior data analyst with the Wisconsin Republican Party beforehand—as his campaign manager. On his Twitter page, Holdorf publicly identified as a “paleocon”—short for “paleoconservative”—which is a particular brand of political conservatism associated with toxic nationalism. In the face of media scrutiny into his background during the judicial campaign, however, Holdorf removed the reference to “paleocon” on his personal Twitter page—and added a disclaimer that all opinions posted on his Twitter page were his own.
Later in the campaign, while serving as Judge Gill, Jr.’s campaign manager, Holdorf decided it would be a good idea to use his personal Twitter page to publicly convey his support of the fringe (and discredited) “stop the steal” conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump repeatedly embraced before and after the 2020 fall election. Of course, the baseless “stop the steal” conspiracy theory eventually resulted in the unprecedented insurrection in January by Trump supporters at the United States Capitol. Not a good look for a judicial candidate who loudly and repeatedly touted his commitment to defend the “rule of law” in Wisconsin’s court system during the campaign.
Nonetheless, Holdorf’s self-professed political beliefs did not cause Judge Gill, Jr., to terminate his professional relationship with him. Indeed, over the course of the campaign, Judge Gill, Jr. paid $10,500 to Holdorf for his consulting services. And Judge Gill, Jr., was ultimately rewarded for his dismal conduct—receiving public endorsements from most of the state court of appeals judges, not to mention obtaining a coveted judgeship on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
Landis Holdorf Goes Back to His (Racist) Political Roots—Which is Met by Silence From His Former Boss, Judge Gill, Jr.
After the election, Holdorf once again proudly embraced the paleoconservative label on his personal Twitter page. And his online behavior since then has been consistent with that pernicious political ideology—an ideology that, as Vox’s Dylan Matthews explains, “often veers into racism.”
For instance, Holdorf publicly tweeted in mid-April that “Republican governors who refuse to use the power of the state . . . really are the weakest race.” (Emphasis mine.) He later retweeted another person’s tweet asserting that critical race theory “is a destructive poison,” and a conservative organization’s tweet contending that the theory is “[un]-American propaganda.”
However, when asked about his former campaign manager’s controversial conduct, Judge Gill, Jr., did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s request for comment—even though he had ample time to praise Rein for being appointed to the Outagamie County Circuit Court as his successor on his campaign’s Facebook page.
With no rebuke from his former boss—and essentially no media scrutiny of his conduct—Holdorf continued his diatribe against the supposed evils of critical race theory. For instance, Holdorf retweeted a conservative organization’s tweet arguing that critical race theory is a “racist [and] divisive ideology.” A few weeks later, though, as a summer fellow at the Center for Renewing America,1 Holdorf attended a seminar where Jefferson Sessions, III—the former United States attorney general and United States senator who was once denied a federal judgeship because of “his comments on race and his role in prosecuting a voter fraud case against black civil rights activists in Alabama”—gave a speech to the inaugural class of fellows at American Moment,2 a right-wing organization whose “mission is to identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.” And to top it off, he proudly tweeted about it to the public.
Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Yadira Rein Invites Judge Gill, Jr., to Make Remarks at Her Investiture Ceremony—and Then Touts His Endorsement on Her Campaign Website
In this context, Rein still decided to invite newly elected Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Gill, Jr., to give prepared remarks at her investiture ceremony—notwithstanding his association with Holdorf, whose political views are largely anchored in white supremacy ideology. And more recently, Judge Rein has touted the public endorsements she has received from numerous elected officials, including Judge Gill, Jr.—who endorsed fetal personhood during his most recent judicial campaign, which directly conflicts with prevailing United States Supreme Court precedent establishing that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability of the fetus.
Accepting an endorsement from another person when running for public office primarily serves one purpose: to influence voters who might not otherwise cast a vote for you to do so. And an endorsement generally indicates that a particular entity or person—in this case, Judge Gill, Jr.—approves and supports the qualities of another entity or person—in this case, Judge Rein. But implicit in the act of a candidate accepting an endorsement from a person is that the candidate approves and supports the qualities of the person making the endorsement. In other words, by accepting Judge Gill, Jr.’s endorsement—and highlighting the endorsement on her campaign website—Judge Rein has communicated to eligible voters that she approves and supports the qualities of Judge Gill, Jr.
According to Judge Rein’s campaign website, it is important that a judge “lead by example.” However, Judge Rein’s decision to publicly accept Judge Gill, Jr.’s endorsement unfortunately shows that it’s more important to her to retain her judgeship than to aspire to champion the rousing ideals which underpin Wisconsin’s judicial system. When compiling an list of endorsements to disseminate to the public in the future, it would behoove Judge Rein to follow her own exhortation and remember that, as United States Supreme Court Louis Brandeis recognized long ago, the government—through its officials and employees—is the “omnipresent teacher” that “teaches the whole people by its example.”
According to its website, the organization’s purpose is “[t]o renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities.”
According to its website, last summer “American Moment organized and paid for ten inaugural fellows at $3000 per month for 10 weeks to pursue an internship either on Capitol Hill or in the public policy non-profit sphere in Washington, DC.” Landis Holdorf was one of these inaugural fellows—apparently choosing to serve as a summer fellow at the Center for Renewing America.