Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

In a 2014 book, Daniel Kelly wrote:

“Affirmative action and slavery differ, obviously, in significant ways. But it’s more a question of degree than principle, for they both spring from the same taproot. Neither can exist without the foundational principle that it is acceptable to force someone into an unwanted economic relationship. Morally, and as a matter of law, they are the same….”

Kelly included the same passage in his 2016 application for a Supreme Court vacancy.

In a 2013 blog post, Kelly described Social Security as “involuntary servitude” by taxpayers to benefit those whom he described as “people who have chosen to retire without sufficient assets to support themselves.”

Kelly, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, is running in the April 4 Supreme Court election against Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

DocumentCloud: Daniel Kelly Supreme Court application (Page 59 of pdf)

The Cap Times: Who is new Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly? Questions and answers about Scott Walker’s appointment to the bench

Internet Archive: The Moral Consensus That Must Not Be Mentioned

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Tom Kertscher joined Wisconsin Watch as a full-time Milwaukee-based reporter in October 2024 after starting as a freelance Fact Briefs reporter in January 2023. In addition to contributing to Wisconsin Watch’s collaboration with The Gigafact Project to combat online misinformation, he reports on Wisconsin policy, labor, energy and the rapid expansion of data centers across the state. Kertscher is a former longtime reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine and the author of two sports books, on Al McGuire and Brett Favre.