David Crowley and "Getting Things Done"
This article might instead be called “If It Is Bipartisan, It Is Probably Bad.” We will talk about some of the examples where a Republican came around and did a good thing, but in our political climate we should all take pause anytime someone refers to a piece of legislation that actually passes as “bipartisan.” For example: increased funding for the war in Iran - bad. Bailing out the banks in 2008 - bad. That immigration bill Tammy Baldwin was so excited about in 2024 - bad. Wisconsin State Budgets - mostly bad!!
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The one and only gubernatorial debate came and went. The clear consensus seems to be… consensus. The field was mostly united on their state policy goals (which seems to have given some pundits the idea that candidates are all the same beyond presentation differences - don’t be fooled) and treaded lightly with attacks. Talking heads might have you believe that there was no clear winner - though there was perhaps a loser - but I submit that the winner was none other than Francesca Hong. Not necessarily in her performance, but in the tone of the debate. An open socialist is winning in the Democratic primary, and as a result the policy conversation is shifting left. That is a win for Hong, and that is a win for the people of Wisconsin.
It sits in stark contrast to some of the debates from yesteryear. The Democratic debates from the presidential primary in 2020 included Bernie Sanders, candidates pitching themselves as Sanders-lite, and a pack of wild dogs barking “I’m the one who can get things done!” The implication being that nice ideas are nice, but we need someone who can serve up that inevitable pro-corporate slop - like data centers.
Bipartisanship is Dead Because Republicans Killed It
We love talking shit about Democrats ‘round here - and we are good at it! But one would be mistaken that our relative lack of anti-Republican sentiments indicates approval. They are going to do what they are going to do, and what they do is never concede an inch! I am sure your parents and grandparents have some stories about how Tommy Thompson was great or some nonsense, but since at least the Tea Party, the modus operandi for any politician with an R by their name is to obstruct leftward progress, and stay on the attack with their agenda.
Boss Vos ran a tight ship as the Majority Leader in the Wisconsin Assembly, taking note from living corpse Mitch McConnell. This meant that for the majority of the Evers administration schools went underfunded, Badgercare went unexpanded, and prisons kept imprisoning. To the extent that anything bipartisan made it through his mesh net progress-filter it was mostly all bad.
I don’t even mean to imply that Republicans never once stumbled onto a good idea or two. I remember having a lot of hope for a law proposed by a Republican that would impose limits on the deleterious effects of payday lending. Payday lending is bullshit, and it preys on us poors in the city, and rural areas alike. If bipartisanship is worth anything, it should be looking out for the people who struggle to afford rent, groceries, and medical bills across the state, regardless of political affiliation. This bill would have made loans with interest rates above 36% unenforceable by the law, (and if anything this bill did not go far enough,) but it would genuinely have helped protect a vulnerable population… if it had passed.
It may have passed too! Republicans cosponsored, Democrats cosponsored, and even the most handsome and cool representative Darrin Madison (member of the Socialist Caucus) signed on as cosponsor. Ultimately, this bill was never brought to a vote, and we have none other than Robin Vos to thank for it. This is because while some Republicans occasionally try to use their position to help their constituents, Republicans at large do not want to endure bipartisanship to accomplish any of it. I suspect this is because they do not want Democrats to be able to claim to have delivered anything for the people of Wisconsin.
David Crowley, and “Getting Things Done”
It wasn’t that long ago that I praised David Crowley, and I stand by all of those things. At the time the point was to poke fun at the idea of “electability,” and the man had just dropped out. It didn’t seem right to talk about him being a bullshit County Executive. But Crowley is back, baby! And just as motivating as ever (not very!) In his interview with Dan Schafer, Crowley highlights three of his most boring achievements but in a way that sounds like they might be impressive if you are someone who is turned on by data points. Let’s break them down:
“We have the lowest unsheltered homeless count per capita than any community in the entire country.” This isn’t a lie, none of these are lies. But “unsheltered homelessness” is a notoriously difficult statistic to gather meaningfully. The Department of Housing and Urban Development collects these numbers on one night in January. This year on January 10th it was 20 degrees overnight - this means that the warming shelters were open, and that the people in these most temporary of “shelters” were not being counted. It is good that we have these shelters, but the homelessness problem is not being addressed in Milwaukee County with the tenacity it needs to be. As we will discuss later he is touting the bandaid for the problem created by the people funding him.
“We’ve lowered opioid overdose deaths by 40% in just four short years.” Seeing a claim like this one should raise questions. In this case, one Google search will show that this simply follows national, and statewide trends. The reason for this is that In 2022 Wisconsin began receiving payouts from a national opioid settlement. That money has been distributed across the state, and can only be used on programs to treat victims of the opioid crisis. David Crowley’s office has directed the funds from the settlement to be put towards the epidemic, and they are legally required to. It is perhaps also worth noting that according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum “opioid overdose deaths in Milwaukee County are falling, but at a slower rate than deaths in all other counties combined.” It is awesome that the number is falling, and that drug manufacturers are seeing some amount of justice, but this is not necessarily a credit to David Crowley’s leadership. Honestly, the person who most deserves credit for the reduction of opioid deaths is Attorney General Josh Kaul for joining the litigation against the pharmaceutical industry, and bringing that money back in the first place.
“We have been able to bring more money back (to Milwaukee county), close to about $100M a year since 2023. “ The lionshare of this money comes from the state agreeing to foot the bill for highway patrol and incarceration, and a regressive sales tax imposed as part of the shared revenue scam Crowley helped Republicans impose on Milwaukee. One might be tempted to give him credit for this, but he did not pass those savings on to Milwaukee County. Instead he signed off on a budget that further added that funding to the ever increasing pool of Sheriff and Reintegration (jail) budgets while also asking other offices around the county to find things they can cut. The framing sounds great, but the progressive allocation of this money would have let the state fund those services while we put our money in the services we actually need, like transportation.
Right now as David Crowley actively runs on a platform around housing affordability he is pushing for a nearly billion dollar investment in the county courthouse. How does he plan to pay for it? Raising property taxes! Property taxes are another regressive tax that hurts low income people. In Milwaukee these taxes are already outrageous and are making homeownership less and less viable. Moreover landlords are passing that cost on to renters. In 2025 after the last referendum around schools passed (at the cost of increased property taxes) landlords responded immediately by raising rents, and we have every reason to believe that renters will be the ones ultimately footing the bill for this construction.
Crowley also repeatedly cut funding for right to counsel from his budget, making it easier for those landlords to kick people out of their houses. Fortunately, other county supervisors bent to pressure from democratic socialists to put this Ryan Clancy authored program back into the budget. (As an aside, Francesca Hong has a plan to bring these to make that program state-wide.) Crowley also took money from realtors and investment firms. When he says he’ll “get things done” we should immediately ask: “for who?” Cuz it looks like the answer is, for these donors.
At the same time under Executive Crowley’s misleadership we have seen drastic cuts to the Milwaukee County Transit System, and to other necessary services. What we have not seen is any meaningful cuts towards county jail, nor towards the sheriffs office! The tax levy has nearly doubled for the county jail alone. Imagine the county as a human body. The blood is the money flowing towards the operations like Parks, and the Department of Health. The arteries through which blood flows are coated by the plaque representing a bloated Sheriff's budget. As a result the heart must work that much harder (raising taxes) to pump blood, and keep the body functioning properly.
David Crowley has shown no interest in addressing these clogged arteries, and isn’t taking his atorvastatin! I am willing to concede that the courthouse needs work, and even that the revenue systems are not working in Milwaukee County’s favor, but he has not been a leader in these times of crisis. This lack of political imagination will no doubt carry over to how he will govern at a state level, and squander the energy that the Democratic Party has at this moment of outrage against inflation, and Trump-style fascism. As Tony Evers said at a political rally, Crowley will “get things done,” it is just going to hurt us all in the process.
Action For Action’s Sake
It is at this time that I would like to remind readers that Action for Action’s sake is a one of the defining characteristics of fascism by the leading scholar in the topic, Umberto Eco. To the fascist, action is beautiful in itself and rejects intellectualism. David Crowley is not a fascist, but the slavish devotion towards “getting things done” is at least a conservative ethos.
When we praise leaders like Crowley or Evers for “action”, we are at-best saying that they showed up to work. The only alternative explanation I can think of is that there is nothing in his record that is exciting enough to be highlighted, and in Crowley’s case I think we have demonstrated that is the case. Remember that the list we worked through a few paragraphs up is by his own admission his MOST MERITORIOUS WORK. This lack of political imagination may also be seen as a form of anti-intellectualism.
Again this is not to say that liberals who find beauty in “getting things done” are fascist, but that this way of going about business tills the soil that allows fascism to grow. To emphasize bipartisanship uncritically is to lend legitimacy to Republican priorities, (something David Crowley seems excited to do.) When the best the nominal left voices in the discussion can offer is a set of data points that don’t reflect people’s lived experience, those people will obviously seek more radical solutions. They might move toward Tom Tiffany style fascism - or we can entice them our way by delivering on socialist promises.
How Do We Bring Back Good Bipartisanship
Republicans may have killed bipartisanship, but we can bring it back. This process begins when we aggressively advocate for our people-first agenda. It starts with Democrats choosing to not compromise, and not temper correct positions in the name of giving Republicans a voice. Democrats’ job is to force Republicans to make bipartisan concessions! It requires elected officials to create policy goals that are undeniable to the public, and to go on the offensive against bad actors.
During her tenure as a state senator, Kelda Roys worked hard to pass legislation that expanded the ability for registered nurses to practice independently as an APRN, without working under a physician’s license. Anyone who has had a good experience with a Nurse Practitioner will tell you about why this is a good idea and it will allow nurses to help fill in the gaps in healthcare, especially in rural areas. This is not simply “getting things done,” this is a concrete solution towards helping address our healthcare crisis, and Republicans were able to get behind it.
Back in April a bipartisan bill passed that would help to regulate online sports betting in Wisconsin. This legislation went after sports betting companies like Fanduel by providing modest regulations, and revenue sharing with Tribal governments in Wisconsin. Reigning in huge, predatory institutions like online gambling is an easily explainable good and some Republicans were able to champion them for the sake of their constituency.
These examples are easy to highlight because of how little legislation actually comes to pass, and how the loosening grip of Republican control of the legislature has helped to wrangle progress out of them. This kind of bipartisanship is the beginning. Both of these laws are good, but not ideal. The nursing law expands the practice of qualified nurses and is pitched as a solution to the problems created by the closure of rural hospitals and lack of doctors, especially in rural areas. These hospital closures are a result of the bipartisan undermining of universal healthcare, and propping up a for profit medical system. The real solution isn't this ticky-tack effort to allow nurses to provide care, it would be a robust overhaul of the way our medical system functions in this country.
Likewise, the sports betting phenomenon is a result of decades of bipartisan cleavage of regulation around anti-trust and the corporate consolidation that is ruining sports, and making life more expensive for regular people. This regulation on this specific industry is okay, but it fails to address the conditions that lead to the gambling crisis! The hopelessness that comes with a lack of economic opportunity is not addressed by the current state of bipartisanship. This is why we need bold leaders. “Getting things done” is a meaningless phrase. What we should be looking for from a politician is how sincere they are about using political will to find actual solutions to the problems caused by the rich scumbags dictating our politics and lives.
