Attorney general
On October 7, 2013, Wisconsin's then-attorney general, J. B. Van Hollen, announced he would not run for a third term in 2014. Schimel subsequently announced that he was considering a run to succeed Van Hollen; he formally announced his campaign less than a week later. Ultimately, no other Republican candidates entered the race, and Van Hollen endorsed Schimel as his successor. As a gun rights proponent, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund endorsed his campaign. In the 2014 general election, Schimel defeated his opponent Democrat Susan Happ.
As attorney general, Schimel appealed the ruling by a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin that Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of Making a Murderer, had been coerced into confessing to a murder as an intellectually disabled 16-year old. Courts subsequently ruled either to free Dassey or block his release pending a new trial. Schimel argued that the United States Supreme Court should not hear Dassey's case. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined hearing Dassey's case, Schimel said he was pleased.
Schimel also attempted to resuscitate the abortion-limiting provisions of 2013's Act 37 passed by the Legislature. Those provisions, requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, were struck down by a federal judge in 2013. Schimel appealed the ruling to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which upheld the district court decision in their November 2015 ruling. Schimel then appealed to the United States Supreme Court, but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In November 2016, a three-judge panel of federal judges found that Wisconsin's legislative map, enacted in 2011, was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The map had resulted in a persistent Republican majority of about 64% of both legislative chambers despite the popular vote in the state being evenly split between the two parties. Schimel appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, which heard the case along with other partisan gerrymandering questions in that term. The Court gave its opinion in the case Gill v. Whitford (2019), siding with Wisconsin Republicans and ruling that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated personal harm, and therefore did not have standing to challenge the map. The decision effectively ended federal court oversight of partisan gerrymandering questions.
As attorney general of Wisconsin, Schimel helped lead a 20-state lawsuit that sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
On March 29, 2017 the Wisconsin State Journal reported that Attorney General Schimel reached a settlement with 3M Company over pollution violations without fining the company.
During his tenure as Wisconsin Attorney General, Schimel faced criticism regarding the handling of a backlog of untested sexual assault kits (SAKs). Upon assuming office in January 2015, Schimel inherited 6,006 untested SAKs from previous years of buildup. In September 2015 his office secured $4,000,000 in federal grants to address the issue. By early 2017, Schimel claimed to have tested "hundreds" of untested kits, but two days later, spokeswoman Rebecca Ballweg admitted that only nine kits had been tested. Ballweg said Schimel's office would now use the grant money to send 200 SAKs to a private lab per month. Police departments were also criticized for dragging their feet on the testing. Schimel had expedited the process by authorizing overtime and the hiring of 11 part-time workers. By June 2018, Schimel's office had tested 1,900 kits out of the now-grown 6,800 untested kits.
Schimel announced in September 2018 that all but five of the eligible tests had been cleared after receiving about $7,000,000 total in grant funding.
Schimel stated that he used a victims' rights approach in gathering survivor consent and minimizing victimization. Schimel pointed out that members of the victim advocate group the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault stated that the completion of the backlog of untested kits was a significant milestone and that they were satisfied with the pace of the tests.
