You can run for county board!
Now is a time of political momentum for socialism and left populism in the US. MAGA Republicans are fracturing and floundering with increasingly bizarre behavior, desperate cheating, and wild gambits to evade the midterm shellacking due to them for all their outrageous over-reach and attempted fascist takeover. Meanwhile, establishment Democrats are in a well-deserved legitimacy crisis. From New York, to Seattle, to even the Wisconsin Governor’s race, Democratic Socialists are making waves, getting attention, and winning!
The window for bringing this energy into local races closes with the county board election filing deadline on Tuesday, January 6. There are only three new candidates at this time, none of whom are socialists, but more could emerge this week, easily collect the required signatures, and seize socialism’s moment to transform local politics. Are you interested in defending the working class against politics as usual? Do you want to combat the corporate sleaze and corruption going on in Milwaukee County? Running for county board is an achievable and powerful way to do it.
Contact us, and our friends at Wisconsin Electoral Socialists to get help starting your campaign.
Leverage at the county board
The balance of power on Milwaukee’s County Board is in play this election. One or two victories in the right districts could knock over the corporate establishment’s house of cards, and advance substantial improvements in our local politics. In this article, we’re looking at the political dynamics and history of the county board. We’re also publishing a companion article looking at specific county supervisors and their challengers.
Broadly speaking, Milwaukee’s County Board can be sorted into three factions: left, right, and center. Every supervisor has their eccentricities and pet issues, and every issue has its unique political dynamics, so our sorting relies on imperfect generalizations. The left and center factions hold an equal number of seats, but some centrists (like Marcelia Nicholson and Jack Eckblad) love to self-describe as “progressive”. They often vote with the left to protect that reputation and avoid electoral challenges. Two of the conservatives can also sometimes vote with the left, either due to either eccentric ideology (Deanna Alexander) or to appease their more progressive constituency (Sheldon Wasserman). What this means is that, when the left sets the agenda, and mobilizes constituents across the county, we can win.
The big trouble with the county board right now is that no one is aggressively pushing a left populist agenda. If they did, the centrists and conservatives might vote together to block resolutions, but every time a centrist blocks a popular issue, their “progressive” credentials or self-image suffers. Faced with enough clear votes, the centrists would either relent under pressure, or invite electoral challenges from constituents with better politics. The tired adage “when we fight, we win” is particularly true on the Milwaukee County board.
History bares this out. From 2020 - 2024 outspoken socialist and abolitionist Ryan Clancy of Bay View was on the board. Clancy didn’t just court controversy, he embraced it. He was arrested during the George Floyd Uprising and sued the sheriff’s office. He famously said that law enforcement jobs have no dignity or value, and stood by it. He took on landlords, state republicans, and the wealthy establishment. His approach was exhausting, but effective. During Clancy’s years in office, the county board reduced David Crowley’s proposed sheriff budget increases to instead fund parks, buses, community centers, and right to council for people facing eviction. They broke up the food monopoly at the county jail and Community Reintegration Center. Clancy also advanced resolutions that called out Israel’s genocide, protected abortion access, further defunded the sheriff, and further improved conditions for incarcerated people in county facilities. Momentum was behind us, but the work is unfinished.
Unfortunately, Clancy left the county board in 2024 to focus on the growing socialist caucus at the State Assembly, and his preferred successor, Ron Jansen, was defeated by well-funded fake progressive tech bro, Jack Eckblad. Clancy’s approach is not easy. Centrists who call themselves progressive publicly criticized him and they rallied against him when genocide freaks and bootlickers recruited a politically inactive conservative to primary him in the 2024 assembly race. They are fixin’ to try again. The media portrayed this as a personality conflict, but it was clearly actually political. Centrists said Clancy was uncooperative and mean because he put them in the uncomfortable position of choosing between their wealthy elite backers and the majority of their constituents’ wishes. Clancy and his supporters fought off those attacks, but doing so sapped our capacity to build a stronger local socialist base, and deterred other left-leaning supervisors from rocking the boat.
Left supervisors like Juan Miguel Martinez, Steve Shea, and Sequanna Taylor supported all but the most aggressive of Clancy’s resolutions, but in his absence, they don’t often propose more of the same. Instead, the most strident defense of working class people is coming from newly elected Justin Bielinski of West Allis, who replaced conservative Tony Staskunas. The 2024 election also saw Anne O’Connor move the Shorewood and the North Shore suburbs left by replacing centrist Liz Sumner. On the whole, the county board leans further left than it did from 2020-2024, but with no one bold enough to push the envelope like Clancy did, they get less done.
Opportunities
None of the above-mentioned supervisors have constituents as supportive of socialist and left populist ideas as Bay View was for Clancy. If we pressure Bielinski or Martinez to act like Clancy did, they will face and might not survive the centrist attacks he endured, because they don’t have Bay View radicals backing them up. That’s why progress depends on winning more seats this spring.
As we cover in our companion article, no one is running as an outspoken Clancy-style socialist. Also, no one is challenging incumbents in the districts most likely to support such a candidate. There are also vulnerable centrist incumbents, who are not being contested.
That’s why we’re hoping new candidates step up! If you have the disposition for electoral politics, and the drive to advance socialism in Milwaukee, or just defend regular people against the wealthy elites dominating our politics, please consider running. Contact us or Wisconsin Electoral Socialists to get advice and find volunteers.
The deadline to collect signatures is January 6, but only a few hundred signatures are needed. A motivated candidate with a handful of volunteers can collect them in one weekend. It’s not too late if you act fast!
