Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn is a veteran of the last decade’s fiercest partisan wars.

As chief legal counsel to GOP Gov. Scott Walker, Hagedorn helped write the 2011 law that stripped public-sector labor unions of their collective bargaining rights. Then in 2019, he won a narrow election to a 10-year high court term with backing from the state’s GOP media and grassroots networks.

But Hagedorn, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, who in 2016 founded a private school that forbids same-sex relationships among its employees and students, is no longer a darling of the right. In a series of 4-3 decisions, he sided with the court’s three liberal justices to stop an effort to purge 130,000 people from the Wisconsin voter rolls, block the Green Party candidate and Kanye West from the general election ballot and, on two separate occasions, reject President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin.

Hagedorn has in recent days found himself at odds not just with his political base but with his fellow conservative justices, who have spared little expense in showing their anger with him in judicial dissents defending Trump’s case.

He discussed the experience in an interview Friday. The following is an excerpt.

Q: What is your response to Wisconsinites who supported you when you ran for the court and now are deeply unhappy with some of the decisions you’ve made?

A: When I ran, I was pretty consistent that I believe deeply that law and politics are not the same thing. Most of us probably have some hope that our preferred candidate or our preferred policies, that the law runs in the same direction, but that isn’t always the case. And I said I was going to be a textualist and an originalist. I believe very deeply in those things.

And I think my decisions have reflected that. And I made clear even when I was running that I would make decisions that I’m sure some folks, certainly conservatives, may not like from a policy outcome and that when I do, I was just following the law. People should know that.

Q: Do you feel any sort of kinship with Republican officials in states like Arizona and Georgia who have had to defend their election system against a resistance from conservative grassroots?

A: The hard thing to do, the courageous thing to do, is to fulfill your oath, especially when you know it’s going to make your political supporters unhappy. It doesn’t matter what your role is, whether you’re the Republican secretary of state of Georgia or any other elected official.

So, I’m not unaware of the political criticism that some of my decisions would bring. I’m well aware of that, and so I think it’s a wonderful reflection of the strength of our country when people can do what they think is right and fulfill their oath as they understand it regardless of what political pressure may come their way.

Q: How have you become aware of that criticism?

A: Talk radio in Wisconsin, particularly on the conservative side, is very prominent. I turned on the radio one morning driving to work and heard what a horrible person I was. So it’s hard to miss it.

Yes, I’ve been called a traitor. I’ve been called a liar. I’ve been called a fraud. I’ve been asked if I’m being paid off by the Chinese Communist Party. I’ve been told I might be tried for treason by a military tribunal. Sure, I’ve gotten lots of interesting and sometimes dark messages.

Q: Does that change your approach to your job at all, having that sort of feedback?

A: Maybe members of the public forget this because their civic culture really just doesn’t know how to debate issues in a very healthy way right now. And there is sort of this tribal understanding that either you’re with us or you’re against us.

I’ve got five young kids, and, sure, there’s certain uncomfortableness, too, when your child asks you whether it’s OK to play in the front yard or whether they should just stay in the backyard.

Q: What did you think about the broader conservative push led by the president to change the results of the election and the widespread rejection of that from courts at multiple levels?

A: I can’t speak to all the other cases out there, but certainly in the cases before us, they were asking us to throw out those elections. There was certainly nothing in the nature of the law or the facts that supported getting anywhere close to that, and I communicated that clearly. And I do think if you’re going to make a claim like that, you better have your evidence, and you better have the law on your side and make your case. And at least in the cases before us, that wasn’t the case.