I have been witness to a modern day tragedy, one that has taken place since the beginning of my professional career in Wisconsin. When I arrived in Madison in 1971, first to work for State government before moving to the University in 1975, the State’s reputation for clean, competent, and progressive government was unparalleled. The State’s bureaucracy was shielded from political meddling by citizens boards who oversaw most key agencies. A strong civil service system prevented any form of patronage or nepotism from diluting what was a highly competent and dedicated workforce from functioning in the public interest. As I ran into officials from other states and from Washington, I heard the same refrain again and again. Wisconson was the state they looked to as the proverbial ‘city on the hill’ where the highest ideals of public service had been realized.

That was true from my perspective. I enjoyed my time as a civil servant during which we introduced, among other things, groundbreaking innovations in the automated management of human service and welfare systems, or at least begun that process. I once asked a colleague at the time why this was so. Just what made Wisconsin special. She thought this might be attributed to the strong Germanic and Scandinavian cultural persectives that dominated the state. A tradition of public service and service to the entire community formed the underlying zeitgeist of how government was seen and what was expected from it. Milwaukee had long been run by socialist mayors until a mere decade before my arrival and they had a reputation for competency and scrupulous honesty.

And then there was the famous ‘Wisconsin Idea,’ where the boundaries of the University were the boundaries of the State. Put simply, the intellectual resources of the University of Wisconsin would be brought to bear to improve the governance of the people and in the service of all the people. The groundwork for the full expression of the Wisconsin Idea can be traced back to Robert M. Lafollette and Charles Van Hise. They were members of Wisconsin’s class of 1879. Lafollette, a liberal Republican when there were such animals, was better known as ‘Fighting Bob’ and went on to become a nationally known political figure and champion of progressive reforms. Van Hise served as University President from 1903 to 1918, a period when the Wisconsin Idea flourished and matured. This concept gained such currency that Teddy Roosevelt, as he accepted the Presidential nomination in 1912, observed that “the University of Wisconsin has been more influential than any other agency in making what it has become, a laboratory for wise social and industrial experiments in the betterment of conditions.”

One of the major reformers from this period was John R. Commons who joined the faculty in 1904. Lafollette immediately recruited him to work on a strenghtened civil service law, one that would shift state government from a patronage based civil service to one founded on expertise and merit. He went on to strengthen the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library (later Bureau). This improved the technical capabilities of the lawmakers, and diminished an odious tradition whereby special interests drafted state laws since that capacity did not exist within the legislature up to that point. Corporate lawyers were eager to help out, as you might imagine, but that quite obviously was a transparent conflict of interests.

Commons, late in his career, observed “I know see that all of my devices and recommendations for legislation in the state or nation have turned on this assumption of a nonpartisan administration by specially qualified appointees.” The first era of the Wisconsin Idea did more than enhance the apparatus of state government. University experts worked with the legistature to intriduce develop and enact a number of progressive ideas such as a progressive income tax, workers compensation, and so much more. If there was a birthplace for the nation’s ‘progressive era,’ it was in the Badger State.

The second strong era of the Wisconsin Idea occurred during the the Great Depression of the 1930s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in response to the horrific suffering brought on by a global economic collapse, established the Committee on Economic Security to develop a strategic response to the unfolding tragedy. Not surprisingly, the President looked to the University Wisconsin for ideas and experts. He tapped Ed Witte, one of John Common’s students, to head this critical committee. Witte, in turn, brought along Arthur Altmeyer, Harold Groves, and the young Wilbur Cohen to Washington in addition to several social insurance ideas they had been thinking about. This ‘brain trust’ was largely responsible for enacting the Social Security Act in a mere six months. This act fundamentally altered the character of national governance in the U.S. by drastically increasing the role the federal government would play in supporting vulnerable Americans.

A third Wisconsin idea era occurred in the 1960s. Robert Lampman, an economist from U.W. was serving on JFK’s Council of Economic Advisors. He (and Burt Weisibrod, another U.W. economist) wrote a seminal chapter in the annual economic report to the President which argued that economic growth alone would not lift all boats out of want. There were structural pockets of poverty in the ecomomy that would need direct intervention. His ideas were picked up by JFK’s successor and became the basis for the 1965 declaration of a War On Poverty by Lyndon Johnson. When the federal government realized they needed academic help in this new war, they immediately looked to Wisconsin for intellectual firepower. The Institute for Research on Poverty was established in 1966 with Bob Lampman as the first Acting Director. Almost six decades later, the Institute is still going strong.

When I moved from State governemt to the University in 1975, I was able to facilitate a working relationship between the State and the Academy that worked well for many years. I don’t have time to recount all the benefits of such a parnership but they encompassed such areas as Child Support, a State Earned Income tax, the integration of welfare with labor market and human service systems, innovations in child welfare and child care, and so much more.

Buy alas, Camelot never lasts forever. Even during those halcyon days, when the quality of State government in Wisconsin was the envy of all, some cracks appeared. In the late 1970s, changes were made to the structure of state government that introduced more politics. The State’s chief executive was given more power to appoint top bureaucrats. I paid particular attention to this shift largely because my spouse was on the Committee that recommended such a shift. She and I argued at the time (politely). She maintained that the Chief Executive needed more control of the bureaucracy to govern effectively. I responded that such a change would turn Wisconsin into just another state paralyzed by political disputes and managed by suspect lackeys in too many (though not all) cases. A decade later she finally swallowed her pride and admitted that I had been right. [NOTE: That might have been the only time that happened in our five decades together.]

While the slide toward a politicized state government accelerated under Republican Tommy Thompson, there is little doubt that the last decade has seen the most precipitous collapse of what made Wisconsin special (though Democratice Governor Tony Evers has at least slowed down Republican mischief). In 2015, during his short run for the Presidency, Republican Governor Scott Walker cut the University’s budget, packed the school’s Board of Regents with hard-right conservatives, gutted tenure protections, and went after the ‘Wisconsin Idea.’ Republican politicians talked as if the school should be a glorified vocational or tech school where the prime mission was “connecting students and workers withthe skills needed in today’s workforce.” They disprespected all notions of a broad-based educational experience or helping students to become critical thinkers. Walker even tried to excise language in the University’s mission referring to the Wsiconsin idea but the blowback was immediate and fierce.

Not unexpectedly, U.W. began a reputational and actual slide even as the school’s administrators spent millions on faculty retention packages. Top faculty always have options and the best of the best began fleeing to more accepting pastures. While you can always fill faculty slots, you cannot easily get the stars that will bering in resources. Not surprisingly, U.W. slid down research funding rankings. I recall that, at one point, the school had been 2nd overall in federal research dollars, right after Johns Hopkins . In National Science Foundation funding, the school fell from 10th place in 2010 to 16th in 2021 while overall research and evelopment spending (from all sources) declined form the 3rd position nationally in 2010 and to 8th in 2021. U.W.s reputational ranking most recently was placed at 49th among all universities. It had been in the 30s as I recall before the attacks began, a very high spot for a public university.

But the most grievous area of Wisconsin’s decline has been in the core of any mature democracy … the right to vote. After Republicans took over full control of state government in 2010, they accelerated their attacks on democracy. Beyond further gerrymandering voting districts, they worked hard at voter suppression by making the voting process more difficult, especially in urban areas where monorities lived. Among other things, they tightened residency requirements, shortened the time frames for early voting or the use of absentee ballots, enacted tougher voter I.D regulations, and disallowed ballot drop boxes. The proffered reason for all this was voting security but that is nonsense. In 48 general primary and special elections between 2012 and 2022, only 192 election fraud cases were brought before the courts. That represented some 0.0006% of all votes cast. And most of these were not intentional (e.g., a felon casting a vote becsuse they did not know they were ineligible).

Voter suppression and gerrymandering are desperate attempts by conservatives to retain control as they see their power slipping away. Consider the following. The University of Wisconsin is an economic engine, especially in Dane County where it is located. The research conducted at the University has spun off many hi-tech firms and businesses. One example is Epic Systems. If your doctor is entering your information on a computer anywhere in the country (or maybe the world), he is likley using an Epic Medical Information System. They started with about 3 employees about three or four decades ago and now have well over 12,000 well-paid workers (the last I looked) and are growing like mad.

You would think Republicans would love all this and support the University as an economic engine that spawns such economic growth as well as bringing in hundreds of millions in research monies (not to forget the forign students who come to study at a World Class University). I shudder to think what the local economy would look like if Republicans succeed in destroying what is left of a world class instituion. But here is the problem for the ‘right.’ These new and mostly younger hi-tech and well educated workers tend to vote Democratic. That cannot be tolerated and no price is too bigh to pay.

In the last election this Spring, Dane county sent more voters to the polls than did the State’s population center Milwaukee and some 82 percent of them went for the liberal candidate for the States highest court … who won by a surprising margin over a hard-right MAGA type. And, as all these hi-tech companies continue to grow, so does the population of Dane County. On the other hand, as rural areas stagnate or decline in population, Republicans see the State sliding from purple to blue. They would do anything, including sacrificing a world class university and and slowing the state’s economic growth while destroying a functioning democracy, simply to stop that decline in their fortunes. After all, they represent the interests, not of all the people of Wisconsin, but of the favored few who are wealthy enough to buy what they want.

Fighting Bob LaFollette must be turning in his grace. But it is not too late to turn Wisconsin around, though righting the ship is far from a done deal! Stay tuned.