WisPolitics.com Luncheon
Loren Fellows
A close-up of Tim Cullen.
Tim Cullen
media release: Tim Cullen & Tom Loftus, who have spent a lifetime in politics, talk about current events and their new books from Little Creek Press.
Tim Cullen is the former Democratic Senate majority leader from Janesville. Tom Loftus is the former Dem Assembly speaker from Sun Prairie. In their legislative heyday, they teamed up to create bills and mischief.
Tim went on to GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson's cabinet and a career in health care. Tom tried to beat Thompson but ended up as ambassador to Norway and a colleague of Tommy's in the fight for better global health.
Tim's book is about redistricting, a key part of the 2024 election story that he helped create. Tom's book is a memoir about his most interesting life. And they have a lot to say about current events.
See more on Cullen's book, "Wisconsin Gerrymandering: The Fight for Permanent Fair Maps and Why It Matters": https://
See more on Loftus' book, "Mission to Oslo: dancing with the Queen, dealmaking with the Russians, shaping history" https://
They will answer questions and sign their books at this event, which includes food and soft drinks. Books available for purchase at the event or go here: https://
More on Cullen's book:
Gerrymandering. It’s a big word for a big mess when it comes to how legislative district maps are drawn in Wisconsin. The practice is “an outrageous abuse of power” that happens whenever one political party controls the legislature and governorship, writes Former Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Tim Cullen, author of “Wisconsin Gerrymandering: The Fight for Permanent Fair Maps and Why It Matters” (ISBN: 978-1-955656-76-4, Retail: $17.95), published this summer by Little Creek Press, Mineral Point, Wis.
“Republicans did it in Wisconsin; Democrats did it in Illinois”, he says because gerrymandering not only keeps one political party in power, but it also greatly influences how policy issues are decided. Cullen adds that he wrote this book to explain why gerrymandering happened in Wisconsin and to discuss how to keep gerrymandering out of Wisconsin. As a former Senate Majority Leader, the practice has been source of frequent voter questions, he notes. “They want to know, ‘How and why does this gerrymandering thing happen’? So, I wrote the book to answer that question.”
His book answers how it happens, how it wound its way into partisan politics, and how, if ever, it could be ended in Wisconsin. The book includes recent court decisions, explains the effects of gerrymandering on policy and elections, and ultimately, offers the history lessons needed to unravel gerrymandering’s twisted past in a way that plots a straighter map to the future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Former Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader (1982-1987), Janesville, Wisconsin native Tim Cullen graduated from UW–Whitewater. He was elected to the state senate as a Democrat at the age of thirty. He later became Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services under Governor Tommy Thompson and worked post-legislature at Blue Cross for 20 years while serving on the Janesville School Board. In 2010, he was reelected to his old Senate seat and served until 2015. Today, Cullen still lives in Janesville and spends his time working with the three foundations he started.
EARLY PRAISE
Wisconsin Gerrymandering is more than an insightful and necessary lesson in history. … It is a call to arms for every Republican, Democrat, independent to be united to take on the fight against Gerrymandering. – Former Governor of Wisconsin Martin Schreiber
ABOUT THE BOOK: Tim Cullen will equally split all profits from this book between Janesville’s Multicultural Teachers Scholarship Fund (which he started in 2008) and Beloit’s similar scholarship program, Grow Your Own. These programs’ sole purpose is to raise money for college scholarships for students and adults of color with the goal to (1) support students who wish to become teachers and who are willing to return to Janesville or Beloit to teach and (2) to make the teacher corps look more like the students they teach. Find “Wisconsin Gerrymandering” through your favorite bookstore. (Wholesalers and Retailers, contact: Ingram Content Group or www.littlecreekpress.com.)
more on Loftus' book:
NATO was expanding, Germany was reuniting, Norway was hosting both the Oslo Accords and the Winter Olympics, and former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Tom Loftus was wining, dining, and most importantly, negotiating his way through it all as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway.
“Mission to Oslo: Dancing with the Queen, Dealmaking with the Russians, Shaping History” (ISBN: 978-1-955656-78-8) is Loftus’s rollicking tale of the true and historic adventures he had as the U.S. ambassador to Norway.
Told with wit and wry humor, the grandson of Norwegian immigrants and the one-time Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate vibrantly brings his international job to life. His memoir covers 1993 through 1997, the momentous four years of the first Clinton administration—a critical time of historic change after the end of the Cold War, with policies adopted that are still debated today, including the Norwegian-brokered Oslo Accords that laid the hopeful groundwork for a path to peace in the Mideast. Loftus recounts the Oslo Accords and relates the hugely pivotal work of both building of relations with a fledgling Russian democracy and of taking part in the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe and the Baltics. He details everything from his travels with The King and Queen to his artful dodging of tanks on a wintry Russian road and from hosting First Lady Hillary Clinton at the Winter Olympics to sharing tea with Nelson Mandela.
Dignitaries and diplomats. Food, wine, entertaining … and, yes, skiing. It is all here in what former U.S. News and World Report journalist Peter Ross Range calls “a wonderfully engaging memoir … a rollicking good journey and compelling tale of a fascinating career.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Loftus served as U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway from 1993 through 1997. A member of the Wisconsin Legislature from 1977 to 1991, he was the longest-serving Democratic Speaker of the Assembly, from 1983 to 1991. In 1990, he was the Democratic candidate for Wisconsin governor. Tom was special advisor to the director general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2005. He was a member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents from 2005 to 2011, and in 2020 and 2021 was senior policy advisor to the UW System president. Tom is on the board of the Outrider Foundation. A U.S. Army veteran, he is a UW-Whitewater graduate and earned a master’s degree from UW-Madison's La Follette School of Public Affairs.
EARLY REVIEWS OF ‘MISSION TO OSLO’
“This wonderfully engaging memoir is by a diplomat-politician with an exceptional feel for both callings. Taking us into the room when kings are met, a president is cajoled, and sensitive international diplomatic deals are made, Loftus uses his wry storytelling gift to create a rollicking good journey and compelling tale of a fascinating career.” —Peter Ross Range, author and former international affairs journalist, Time and U.S. News & World Report
“Your wry sense of humor shines throughout. So well written. How things really work on the ground in an embassy. I would assign it in a heartbeat for my diplomacy course at Occidental.” —Ambassador Derek Shearer, former ambassador to Finland; professor of diplomacy, Occidental College “Dear Tom, thank you for sharing with me the Lillehammer Winter Olympics chapter of your memoir: Nice job! I so enjoyed reading and remembering my visit during your time as ambassador.” —Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Tom Loftus pulls back the curtain and shows us the realities involved in the operation of an ambassador’s life. From the logistics of Winter Olympics last-minute accommodations to the decisions of who sits where at a formal dinner to negotiating the perilous details of NATO policy, this is a fluid, literate, and revealing account.” —George Hesselberg, journalist and writer on Norway
“Protocol in diplomacy, what it is and how it is observed, is brought to life because Tom is a gifted storyteller. The behind-the-scenes work that went in to making the visit of First Lady Hillary Clinton to the Winter Olympics in Norway a success is diplomacy in the real world. An excellent book for students of international relations. It will be a must-read for the staff in U.S. embassies around the world.” —Fred DuVal, former deputy chief of protocol, U.S. State Department; current chairman, Arizona Board of Regents
“An extraordinary effort … the events and the details you recount during your tenure in Oslo are astonishing! This would be a tour de force for that alone. You accomplished a lot in an assignment that easily could have been primarily protocol driven.” —Ambassador Larry Taylor, former Ambassador to Estonia
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