JoAnne Kloppenburg will not challenge the results of Wisconsin Supreme Court election in court, she announced today in a news conference. Following a lengthy county-by-county recount, the Government Accountability Board last week certified incumbent Justice David T. Prosser Jr. as the winning candidate in the April 5 election. Prosser received 752,694 votes and Kloppenburg received 745,690 votes, a difference of 7,004 votes or 0.46 percent.

The announcement by Kloppenburg, a deputy attorney general, means that the Wisconsin Supreme Court retains its 4-to-3 conservative majority and is less likely to be sympathetic toward a legal challenge against the state's news collective bargaining law for public employees. Last Thursday, May 26, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi threw out the law, ruling that the Republican Senators had violated open-meetings laws when they passed the legislation with insufficient notice. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has Sumi's expected ruling here, and more coverage here.