The latest spending numbers in a hotly contested race for state Supreme Court released Wednesday have some saying special interest spending has shouted down the candidates’ own campaigns.

Third-party groups have spent more than nine times as much as the two candidates combined on television advertising between the start of the campaign and last Sunday, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

According to James Sample, associate counsel in the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice, the advertising itself is not a bad thing, and it is one way voters can get accessible information about the candidates.

Instead, Sample added, the problem is that the interest groups, over whom the candidates have no control, are vastly outspending the campaigns themselves, so the candidates don’t have a chance to define their own campaigns.

“When 93 percent of advertising is being done not by the campaigns, it ceases to be what we normally think of as a campaign,” Sample said.

According to estimates from the Brennan Center for Justice, Wisconsin has seen more ads so far than have ever appeared in another state’s full election cycle, except for a 2006 Alabama race contending four seats on the bench.

With total spending in the race topping $2.1 million, proponents of public financing for Supreme Court races are speaking out for the legislation.

Mike McCabe, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said with the right political will, Wisconsin could “walk through the open door” and level the playing field for the candidates by holding the third-party groups to harsher standards.

“Right now these groups are so advantaged by the rules that they get to do all the talking, and the candidates are becoming bystanders in their own race,” McCabe said.

McCabe said he blames the state of judicial elections in Wisconsin largely on television, adding 20 or 25 years ago, candidates practiced a face-to-face brand of politics, wearing out shoes and shaking hands.

“Today, if candidates want to communicate with voters, they really have to do it 30 seconds at a time by television, and that costs a fortune,” McCabe said.