In 2010, Scott Walker was elected Governor of Wisconsin, along with a conservative-controlled Supreme Court of Wisconsin rubber stamping every anti-progressive, anti-union, anti-worker, and right-wing power grab of the Walker administration. Even ending an investigation into illegal coordination within Scott Walker’s 2012 re-call election campaign and outside spending groups.
Wisconsin, once under the sway of a conservative regime, has undergone a remarkable political transformation. Today, it boasts a progressive governor, a liberal Supreme Court, and fair maps, setting the stage for a competitive state legislature for the first time in over a decade as we approach the fall of 2024. This shift, from a dire situation to one of hope, serves as a beacon of possibility in the fight against undemocratic power grabs.
Wisconsin was a test bed for many of the policies and power grabs we’re currently seeing at the national level, and we are still seeing them in Wisconsin, with the state legislature undermining the executive branch. When the anti-union bill act-10 passed in Wisconsin, effectively ending many public sector Unions or reducing their political power to minimal levels, Wisconsin was left to its own devices in resurrecting its labor movement and restoring worker rights. It also had the effect of effectively kneecapping electoral progressive politics.
In response to Act 10, Unions launched the recall of Governor Scott Walker— Act 10 was a mass-mobilizing moment, with 100 or thousands of people descending upon our State Capital for days on end. My mother, who at the time was the head of her teacher's union, was among them and received permanent hearing loss because of the sustained noise. The recall was a complete disaster, and Walker won by a larger margin than he did in 2010— this was extremely demoralizing—all that effort and for nothing.
While recognizing United States democracy doesn’t have ten years to spare, there are lessons to be learned about how Wisconsin came from dire odds to the possibilities of today.
The main lesson? The Wisconsin people didn’t wait for a savior; they organized. Act 10 taught Wisconsin workers that mobilization is nothing without deep organizing to support it. One of the main backbones of this organizing effort was the Wild Project (formerly known as the Wisconsin Leadership Development Project). Many organizations, now serving as the backbone of a resurgent progressive movement, got their start. While the Wild Project wasn’t the only effort to train organizers, it is a notable example.
Issue-based, worker-based, and BIPOC organizing efforts and groups sprung up all across Wisconsin. These groups, such as the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WIPEN) and Leaders Ignite Transformation (LIT), invested their time and effort to build relationships with their communities and constituents, educating people about how the state was failing the working people of Wisconsin and building towards mobilizing events, such as marches for reproductive rights or the uprisings of 2020.
The second lesson is that they acted locally while participating in state and national politics. The old saying is that all politics is local. When you build relationships with your communities, you’re also building trust when communicating electoral messaging. These groups also did not only focus on electoral politics; WIPEN, for example, engages heavily in state and local education budget organizing, lobbying, accountability, and education. In doing so, they can draw direct links to electoral outcomes and local school referendums. This past spring, 93 school districts experienced school referendums to raise property taxes to fill in Wisconsin legislative refusal to invest in public education, 56 were passed. The success of most referendums happened because organizations like WIPEN did such a great job in relationship-building and educating people across Wisconsin that these referendums were happening because of the GOP-controlled state legislature.
The third big lesson is the breaking down of issue-based silos, allowing for more coordination among organizations. In the past five years, Wisconsin has seen the creation of 501c3 and 501c4 tables across issues, allowing organizations to coordinate ad spending, issue education, messaging, and calls to action. They would lean on one another's expertise to lead the way while being in support roles, lifting up calls to action or messaging workshops. This allowed an activist base to be coordinated and educated across issues.
Wisconsin got through a reactionary storm, and now has a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a left-leaning Governor, and is on the precipice of a left-leaning legislature, not through a political savior but because of local leaders, organizers, and everyday people who decided they had enough. They built relationships, and communicated the urgency of now and the possibility of what can be while embracing democracy in its fullest definition— living it every day by engaging in it as a way to live civically.
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