MILWAUKEE (SPECTRUM NEWS) – The two remaining candidates in the race for State Supreme Court Justice share their positions on issues ranging from collegiality on the court to overhauling the criminal justice system.

A technically non-partisan race has been anything but so far.

The moderator of a forum hosted by the Milwaukee Bar Association Thursday afternoon began by asking Dane County Circuit Judge Jill Karofsky why she thinks that is.

“You have one candidate in Dan Kelly who is doing things like running his campaign out of the state GOP headquarters,” Karofsky said. “He is standing in front of Donald Trump signs. He has been endorsed by Donald Trump, and so that certainly makes a race for the Supreme Court very, very political.”

Karofsky's opponent, incumbent Justice Daniel Kelly, who was appointed to the State Supreme Court by former Gov. Scott Walker in 2016, says the race has become political because Karofsky has made inappropriate accusations about him.

“I have four years of history on the Supreme Court, and you can look at the work that I've done, and you can see that I decide cases according to the law and nothing else,” Kelly said. “This behavior by my opponent has been so outside of the bounds of appropriate behavior that the majority of Supreme Court Justices just yesterday took the unusual step of condemning her behavior.”

Past personal friction between justices was also a topic of discussion.

“Look, I have been on the front line of our judicial system for most of all of my career, for almost 30 years,” Karofsky said. “This is where I differ greatly from Justice Kelly. I have been a prosector. I know how the law impacts real people.”

Justice Kelly, who currently sits on the court, says he has a good working relationship with his colleagues.

“You say that you'll be able to work in a collegial fashion with members of the Supreme Court after you spent the last year slandering them as being corrupt,” Kelly said. “The approach that I've always taken, throughout my career, is to walk humbly, to love unconditionally, and to speak the soft word that turns away wrath.”

As Gov. Tony Evers and other members of the legislature push for criminal justice reform, both candidates were also asked about how much the Supreme Court should be involved.

“I think it is incumbent upon those of us who have experience on the front line, which I have and Dan Kelly doesn't have, to tell the legislature what we're seeing, what I see every day,” Karofsky said. “How is the law playing out? I think that's an important thing for them to know and it's important for me to do that.

“The information that we would uniquely have that would assist them in developing new policies with respect to the criminal justice system; I'd be very happy to participate in that but I'm not going to lobby the legislature,” Kelly said.

The general election for State Supreme Court Justice is scheduled for April 7.