Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Pat Roggensack and Ed Brunner met for a debate Friday at the State Bar Center in Madison.

Roggensack and Brunner have been trying to make distinction for themselves with the April 1 election only seven days away. The race to replace current Justice William Bablitch is the first Supreme Court election in seven years that will not feature an incumbent candidate. Bablitch, who is retiring and ending a 30-year career in public service in which he was a district attorney and a state senator, has been a Supreme Court justice for the last 20 years.

In the debate, Roggensack continued to question whether Brunner’s positions on issues prior to the election serve as indications of how he will vote on those issues if they should come before the Supreme Court. Roggensack said Brunner’s positions negate the possibility of impartial consideration later on.

Brunner said the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled judicial candidates could legitimately take positions on issues during their election campaign and said Roggensack’s impartiality was telling.

“When you run for office, people ought to know who we are,” Brunner said. “They shouldn’t have to guess, and you’re going to make decisions about these issues eventually.”

An e-mail sent out Friday by the Republican Party called Roggensack the party’s choice candidate, which Brunner said goes against the idea of judicial politics being nonpartisan.

Roggensack is being endorsed by Republican legislators and University of Wisconsin System president Katharine Lyall, and Roggensack said she is also endorsed by the Teamsters Union and by Democratic judges.

“I’m only responsible for me. I’m not responsible for people that get involved in the campaign,” Roggensack said.

Brunner is endorsed by Bablitch and by defeated primary candidate Paul Higginbotham.

The candidates clashed on the question of experience. Brunner has said that with 15 years as a judge, he has more experience than Roggensack. However, Roggensack has said that her experience as an appellate-court judge would be invaluable to the Supreme Court, which is currently made up of four former trial judges, two former legislators and a former law professor.

Roggensack is currently a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, while Brunner is a judge in Brown County Circuit Court.