For the first time in the State Supreme Court?s history, women will hold the majority of its seats. Pat Roggensack was elected by a narrow majority over Barron County Circuit Court judge Ed Brunner Tuesday night and will now become the first Wisconsin justice with Court of Appeals experience.

Brunner made the argument that Roggensack was a conservative-minded judge and that her election would tilt the balance of the court to a five-to-two conservative majority.

Roggensack denied those claims and said she was a fair judge with no political party affiliations.

Hon. Diane Sykes said justices with dissimilar ideologies can often fall into agreement and argue on the same side of an issue and that unpredictable coalitions are formed between justices on each case.

?Generally we?re viewed as a four-to-three majority conservative court,? Sykes said. ?But those are just labels. How any of us votes on a particular issue can be very unpredictable, so it?s very difficult to generalize.?

Sykes gave the example of a 1999 case in which David Oakley was given five years probation by a Manitowoc County judge after acquiring $25,000 in unpaid child support payments. The probationary sentence was based on the condition that Oakley would not have any more children.

Oakley appealed the constitutionality of the decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled four to three to uphold the sentence along gender lines. The four male justices who made up the majority ruled that sentences that limit a person?s right to procreate were constitutional.

?There are times when we sharply disagree philosophically, but there?s tremendous collegiality,? said Justice David Prosser, Jr. ?That?s the nature of the business we?re in.?

With the addition of Roggensack, female justices will be on the winning side of any future gender-line decisions.

?[Tuesday] was an extremely historic day,? Prosser said. ?Judge Roggensack?s victory in the election makes women the majority on the Court. It was only a little more than 25 years ago that [Chief Justice Shirley] Abrahamson became the first woman on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.?

Sykes said it was a positive thing that states were starting to have female majorities on their top courts and that even having a women chief justice, as Wisconsin does, is not terribly unusual.

Roggensack had made an issue during her campaign of taking on cases involving family law issues as a justice and using her experience as an Appeals judge to help coordinate the appeals process.

?I think she has some good ideas about how to do that, and we?ll welcome anything we can do to make the courts more efficient,? Sykes said. Sykes said the Court does not hear many family law cases because of the criteria justices use to govern the decision of what judicial reviews to accept.

Prosser said there were many ?ticklish? situations in deciding what cases to hear, and the Court usually doesn?t hear family law cases because those cases are often dealt with by regulations in lower courts.

?One of the biggest jobs of the Court is simply deciding what cases to hear,? Prosser said. ?We take the odd cases, the screwball cases that haven?t previously been settled by the rules set up in lower courts.?

Even though Prosser felt Roggensack will offer a unique perspective to the Court, he said it will be an adjustment; the appeals court was much different in nature since it is not necessarily a policy-making court. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals also cannot override its own rulings, so if an appeals court in Milwaukee issues an opinion, a Madison appeals court would have to abide by the decision even if the judges disagree with it.

As a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, Prosser helped teach students the art of legal writing,

?I think future justice Roggensack has written some outstanding opinions. She is a clear and concise writer,? Prosser said.