It was former House Speaker Tip O’Neill who famously coined the axiom “all politics is local,” but Ben Wikler is telling readers of his new book that local politics is also the key to unleashing the big institutional changes needed to clean up politics in the United States.
Wikler, former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, wrote “This Is The Plan,” out this week, to be both past and prologue. Taking control of the party during the bleakest days of Scott Walker’s governorship, Wikler worked with local leaders and activists across the state to chip away at the Wisconsin Supreme Court, win just enough elections to deny Republicans a supermajority in the Legislature, and eventually end the gerrymandered maps that had allowed GOP lawmakers to go against the values of a majority of Wisconsinites. Wikler says that same “bottom up” focus on local elections, groups, and candidates is key to the country’s future.
“Most people don’t know who their state legislators are,” Wikler told UpNorthNews. “But that means that if you do pay attention and if you can persuade other folks that something that they care about is at stake in these local elections, you have a bigger ability to change the outcome. You can get a group of friends together to get involved in races for city council, mayor, state legislator, state Supreme Court. And that starts a chain of dominoes that can affect the course of your state or the entire United States of America.”
“This is something that the richest people in the world figured out a long time ago,” Wikler continued, “and they’ve been putting money in to try to take over power at all these levels. It’s time for people who believe that the government should work for the public to get involved and fight back.”
Wikler says once voters see elected leaders who genuinely tackle issues like the cost of living, they’ll be supportive of political reforms that will make it harder to lose that progress because of things like big money in elections and lifetime US Supreme Court appointments.
“All of these rules have been changed over and over in American history,” Wikler said. “We used to change the number of states. We used to amend the US Constitution. We used to change the number of Supreme Court justices, the number of US House seats, all those things that the rules of the Senate have changed radically over time. The founding fathers of this country were totally opposed to the idea of a filibuster that would require a supermajority to pass any law.”
Wikler is also teaming up with Civic Media on a new video series, “This Is Wisconsin.” The series launched last month.
“It is a project in which I travel around the state and talk to folks about what they love about our state and how we can make it better together,” Wikler said about his visits to places like fairgrounds, where political divisions aren’t as obvious. “I was talking to a family, where the mom had realized she was only making $8,000 a year working full time after paying for childcare. And so if she could leave that job and start a small business, she could actually make it work better, both as a parent and also for her family.”
And so Wikler describes the family’s entrepreneurial journey, made possible by things that work well in Wisconsin.
“This Is Wisconsin” and “This Is The Plan” each have their own websites with more information.
