Moderates need to get in the game

by

My nomination for the least surprising news story of the year is the failure of the attempt to recall Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. 

The effort to get over 36,000 signatures to recall a mayor who had won her election with 62% of the vote less than 18 months earlier was a fool’s errand to begin with. While plenty of Madison residents are frustrated with the rioting, they don’t necessarily hold the mayor responsible for it. Even those who believe her response has been flawed don’t necessarily think that their frustrations justify an early end to her term. 

As a person who once held her job, I can empathize with this mayor. She was doing fine until she got hit with a global health crisis that also had the effect of destroying the city budget, only to be followed with racial unrest. No mayor has ever faced anything like this. She deserves the benefit of the doubt and then some. 

As a political moderate and a believer in practical politics my real concern lies with the city council, the Dane County board and the Madison school board. All of those local bodies are now almost totally run by the far left. Progressives count about 34 of 37 county supervisors as being in their camp. The only member of the school board who might be thought of as anything less than far left is board president and former deputy mayor and Madison police officer Gloria Reyes. And only one of the 20 Madison alders might be thought of as conservative, though even there Ald. Paul Skidmore might be considered a conservative only in the sense that he often sticks up for the Madison police. On other issues he often votes with the progressives. 

This is a sea change in Madison politics. For decades there has been a rough balance. There has always been a far left represented by third party groups like Farm Labor and later Progressive Dane. Then there were mainstream liberals in the local Democratic Party. And finally, there was the business community (a relatively progressive one compared to business communities in other cities) that generally aligned with the mainstream liberals. 

For the most part the liberal-business coalition (such as it was) governed while being pulled to the left by Progressive Dane or its predecessors. But now the left-center has been routed. The far left pretty much runs it all and there isn’t even much of a loyal opposition. 

This lack of political diversity, what amounts to one party rule, isn’t a healthy thing. For example, there isn’t anyone in local government who makes it their reason for political existence to question all expenditures and to try to keep taxes down. When I was in office I had several alders who played that role, most notably the self-described “budget hawk” Ald. Zach Brandon. 

Zach was in the minority but he knew how to get a headline and he loved going on conservative talk radio to make my life miserable. He drove me nuts, but he forced me to justify my spending proposals. He played a valuable role in city government and I respected him for it. (Brandon now heads the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce.)

A particularly painful example of what can happen when there’s little political diversity is the police monitor and oversight board that recently passed the council without amendment. This is, as I count it, a fourth layer of oversight (and bureaucracy) over a police department that, while not without a need for improvement, is far from a department in crisis. And in the context of what could be a $25 million deficit, the thing will add just under a half million dollars in new spending. 

Another example is the withdrawal of school resource officers from Madison’s public high schools. My sense of it is that most teachers, parents, students and community members didn’t see a problem with the SROs and actually wanted them in the schools. But a very loud group of protesters demanded their removal and they won in the end. Thanks to the online start of the school year we won’t know what impact that will have for a while. But in my view it was a rash, dangerous and irresponsible move on the part of the school board and the council, both of which acted to void an existing contract. 

But here’s the thing. For all my frustration with the direction of local government I cannot argue that we don’t deserve it. In a word the left is organized. A good political organization recruits candidates or inspires them to run and then supports them with lists of voters, help in producing campaign literature and websites and with volunteers on the ground. They deliver brochures to the doors of voters and make phone calls. In short, they do the unglamorous work of winning votes. 

Progressive Dane is organized. They work hard and their members are passionate about their causes. Unlike the legislative Republicans who have to steal elections through gerrymandering and voter suppression, Progressive Dane earns every vote. They win fair and square and when they get into office they have a coherent agenda that they push into policy. I may not like it, but that’s what democracy looks like, folks. 

That brings to bear the obvious question. Some substantial part of the Madison electorate is liberal but not that far to the left. They recognize that any police department can improve but they think the police monitor and associated costs are an overreaction. They understand that some systemic racism exists but they don’t think that that issue needs to be addressed at the expense of school safety. They don’t see how destroying property does anything to help people. And in the context of job losses, pay cuts and furloughs, and struggling local businesses, they want their governments to at least try to hold down their taxes. 

So, where’s the political organization to represent those points of view? Where is the moderate or left-center answer to Progressive Dane? 

The answer is that it just doesn’t exist. And yet there’s reason to think that Madison is a more left-center than radical town. The liberal Kelda Roys beat Nada Elmikashfi (now a blogger for Isthmus), who ran far to her left, by 14 points in the Democratic primary for the 26th state Senate district, which covers most of Madison. That’s a pretty fair indication that Madison as a whole is not as far left as its local governments. 

But it doesn’t matter. What matters is who delivers voters and wins elections. And unless moderates get organized locally, all of their complaints will just be so much unproductive whining.