Chali Pittman
Syed Abbas campaign launch
Syed Abbas at his Aug. 25 launch announcement: 'I do not want to be the mayor sitting on the fourth floor.'
Former Madison city council president Syed Abbas, carrying rolled up notes and wearing a crisp white shirt and blue and red checkered tie, beamed to supporters gathered at the Northstreet taproom as he announced his return to local politics, saying he wasn’t interested in governing from a distance.
“I do not want to be the mayor sitting on the fourth floor,” he said at his Aug. 25 announcement, referring to the mayor’s office in the City-County Building. “I want to be a mayor for the people.”
Abbas is one of five candidates who has taken steps to challenge Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway next spring. Rhodes-Conway announced she was running for re-election in July, but since the fatal police shooting of Corey Ruiz on July 22, the two-term mayor has found herself on the defensive and facing a growing number of challengers.
Other candidates who have filed campaign paperwork with the city clerk include hospitality and food service director Larry “Ace” Williams, gym owner Jon Hinds, and former Ald. Brian Benford. Kaleem Caire, founder and CEO of One City Schools, told blogger David Blaska he’ll announce Sept. 15.
As kids colored campaign-themed literature in the corner, Abbas, who was born in Pakistan, described his Madison roots in Eken Park, where he once lived and did neighborhood organizing before being elected to the city council in 2019.
Longtime neighborhood resident Tom Running described how Abbas “reinvigorated” the neighborhood association and “empowered” community members. He also described how Abbas “fought like a tiger” with city traffic engineers over road design.
Beth Sluys, an environmental advocate, described how Abbas “worked tirelessly” to conserve land at the Hartmeyer Natural Area, and find solutions to mitigate the noise from F-35 jets. “He helped us find ways to middle ground at times when it seemed like there wasn’t any,” said Sluys.
After his reelection in 2021, Abbas’s colleagues elected him as council president, a leadership position where he sometimes clashed with Rhodes-Conway over issues like the siting of the temporary men’s homeless shelter and a redesign of the city’s bus network.
In his second term as alder, Abbas faced questions about whether he lived in the district he was elected to represent. Now, Abbas tells Isthmus in a one-on-one interview Aug. 24 that he resides within Madison city limits — but just barely, on the far east side, on the municipal border with Cottage Grove. “It’s the last house where [the] city ends, technically, but I'm still in Madison. I pay Madison tax,” he said in that interview.
Abbas resigned his seat five months early, saying he wanted to spend more time with his daughters, Izzie and Joffe, who were 3 and 5 at the time. Abbas adds that he missed milestones with his first daughter that he didn’t want to miss with his second daughter. Four years later, his daughters are ages 7 and 9, and Abbas says he’s ready to get back in the game.
Abbas also lost a primary run for state Assembly in 2022 — though, thanks to the redistricting ordered by the Supreme Court, he ended up running in a different district than he’d originally intended.
The next year Abbas was hired as deputy legislative director at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Abbas says he’d seek to use his knowledge of the legislative process to secure measures for the city, such as a local sales tax or the creation of a regional transit authority, which remain blocked by the state Legislature.
While Rhodes-Conway has also sought these options from the state through the city’s lobbying firm, Abbas says he has built deeper relationships: “The point here is you had a golden opportunity by having a Democratic governor…and we failed to get a deal.”
Abbas says he does not plan to leave his job to run for mayor, but will take time off once he submits nomination papers, which are due in early January. He filed a declaration of candidacy with the clerk’s office on Aug. 20.
Chali Pittman
Syed Abbas rainbow
One of four available designs at a kids’ table at Abbas' launch party.
Abbas is running on four key areas: fiscal responsibility, housing, social and environmental justice, and transportation.
“We just cannot keep putting the burden on renters and homeowners and create a lot of affordability challenges by increasing property tax,” Abbas says.
He says he’d seek a .5% sales tax for Madison, which would require approval from the state Legislature. Abbas points to the 2023 bipartisan deal that was struck with Republican lawmakers that allowed the city of Milwaukee to implement a 2% sales tax — a deal driven by a mounting debt in the city’s pension system to pay police and firefighters.
Madison, meanwhile, has since hired Jim Steineke, a former Republican lawmaker, to lobby to expand the city’s fiscal options. Another of Abbas’s talking points — developing a regional transit authority — is a prospect Steineke told alders would be “incredibly difficult.”
Former colleague Sheri Carter, now Abbas’s campaign treasurer, spoke at his campaign announcement to other initiatives Abbas supported while in office — including signing off on a pilot program for police body cameras, a technology Carter characterized as “one tool among many” that can advance transparency, accountability, and public safety.
“This has been a 20-year-long fight,” she said, “so I'm hoping that we can push it over the cliff.”
She also described challenging conversations over the city’s budget, noting Abbas’s “great talent” for finding common ground.
“Madison’s at a crossroads,” said Carter. “I know what path I need to take, and I’m asking you to stand with me.”
