The lawyer for former President Donald Trump who worked to reverse his loss in the battleground state Wisconsin has been reappointed by four conservative justices of the state Supreme Court to a second term on the committee that advises judges on judicial conduct.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported that Jim Troupis’ reappointment to the panel was approved by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday in a 4-3 vote, with all three liberal justices dissenting.
Troupis’ first term on the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee was set to expire on Tuesday. With the court’s reappointment, he will remain on the committee until March 7, 2026. Members of the nine-member advisory committee are limited to two consecutive three-year terms.
His reappointment comes about a month before the April 4 election that will determine majority control of the court for at least the next two years. One of the four conservative justices who voted to reappoint Troupis is retiring.
Troupis is a former Dane County Circuit Court judge who represented Trump in 2020 when he tried to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin. Troupis also advised Republicans on their plan to have mock voters in Wisconsin cast their ballots for Trump, even though he had lost.
Troupis is a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Democrats seeking $2.4 million in damages from fraudulent voters and the attorneys who advised them. Also Thursday, liberal attorneys filed an ethics complaint against Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice hired by Republicans to review the 2020 election. The complaint, filed with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, alleges that Gableman has “adopted conspiracy theories, spread falsehoods, misrepresented facts, questioned the character of people he considered his adversaries and abuses the process of law.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in 2021 that when he hired Gableman he had “extreme confidence” in her abilities. But when he fired her in August 2022, Vos called her an “embarrassment”.
The complaint will be reviewed behind closed doors and, if any discipline is recommended, it will ultimately be up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to impose any penalties.