It’s an uphill battle for those fighting an amendment to eliminate the state treasurer’s office. It’s always hard when you are trying to convince someone that they really need to keep something they didn’t know they had.
Once strong coffee clears the dense fog of night, my first worry in the morning is whether or not Donald Trump will blow up the world literally. That’s followed by concern that he’ll blow up something else figuratively, a worry that I can pretty much count on to come to fruition; it’s only a question of what sensible policy, tradition of civility or decent individual he will attack.
If you asked me to name my top issues, after Donald Trump blowing up the world, I would have to say global climate change and income inequality.
Still, unlike people with lives, I have actually kept up with efforts over the years to eliminate the treasurer. Efforts to dismantle the office go way back to when Tommy Thompson was governor and I was a young aide in the state Legislature. I always figured that if I ever got the chance to vote on a constitutional amendment to eliminate the office I would.
This office, along with the state secretary of state, seemed like a bizarre anachronism in the Wisconsin Constitution, like the prohibition on the state granting divorces. I didn’t have anything against the treasurer, who for about a million years was an affable Democrat named Charlie Smith, but I felt that getting rid of his office was like cleaning out the basement after about a decade of accumulation. Huh, why did I think I needed this thing?
But now, faced with the actual ability to vote to toss the office, I find myself planning to vote the other way. This despite the fact that the office is filled right now with a fellow named Matt Adamczyk, who is an aggressive climate denier (my top issue, after Trump blowing up the world!).
You might ask yourself what climate change has to do with being treasurer. Good question. These days the only thing the treasurer actually does is sit on another obscure state institution going back to 1848, which is the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. At statehood the Legislature gave a piece of land in every township to the board with instructions to sell it and use the proceeds to promote public education. The board did just that, and today it administers a billion-dollar trust fund that supports public school libraries, the UW and other projects. And it retains 77,000 acres of land in northern Wisconsin that it manages for the benefit of the public. That’s how Adamczyk got into climate change. He got the commission to order its staff to not speak about climate change, never mind that climate change would have a clear impact on how it would manage those 77,000 acres.
Adamczyk particularly had it out for the commission’s executive director, Tia Nelson, who led a committee under former Gov. Jim Doyle to study the impacts of climate change in Wisconsin. Nelson is highly regarded by both Democrats and Republicans, even though she is the daughter of the late liberal icon Sen. Gaylord Nelson.
Under the rules of today’s vengeful politics, you might expect Nelson to be all-in on eliminating Adamczyk’s job. Instead, she’s among those few brave souls fighting to keep it. Despite the fact that even Adamczyk supports the amendment my guess is that he would run for reelection should the office survive since no work and full pay is something to which we all aspire.
While she might prefer a different individual in the office, Nelson is concerned that if the treasurer goes away and is replaced on the Board of Commissioners with the lieutenant governor, as the amendment specifies, then that would open the door to direct political influence by the governor. The other two commissioners are the attorney general and the secretary of state. And if the treasurer is eliminated, you can bet the next target will be the secretary of state, an office now held by Democrat Doug La Follette.
There are those who suggest that the real end game here is getting access to the board’s budget and lands to exploit both for purposes other than public schools. That’s a credible threat given the generally hostile attitude of this administration toward public education.
There are other arguments about the need for an independent fiscal watchdog, but while that’s a quaint notion, there’s just no way the governor and Legislature are ever going to cede power back to the office regardless of which party is in power.
But for the sake of our public schools alone, I am going to surprise myself and vote against the move to eliminate the state treasurer. Go figure.
