In Praise of Austin King

Photo courtesy of Phil Ejercito at his flickr page.

Brenda Konkel has a very good post this week about the Wisconsin State Journal's treatment of my boy (and our Acting-Mayor), Austin.

There's not too much to add to that. But while the has-beens and never-will-bes in the WSJ Editorial Department and on the AM Dial and in the righty cheddarsphere bury Caesar, I'm going to praise him and explain to you why people like Austin King are important. And to do that, I'm going to go back to a time before he was born.

1975

Earlier this week, the Capital Times ran a story about the 25th Anniversary of the signing of the first civil rights law for gays and lesbians. That happened in Wisconsin. Our state did that and we should be proud of that (I prefer feeling pride in that to the shame I feel over our recent history). In 1982, it was a big deal for Wisconsin to write a MANDATE into law against discriminating against gays and lesbians. Well, it was a big deal if you didn't live in Madison. The Common Council passed and then-Mayor Paul Soglin signed an anti-discrimination MANDATE seven years earlier.

Throughout Madison's history, there are stories of city government getting ahead of the rest of the state and society and passing legislation that everybody else catches up to.

And that's a part of a bigger point I made during my campaign - Madison does best when it's a leader, when it's not afraid to take risks to better society. It does best when it isn't afraid to be an island sometimes when it's the right thing to do.

Now, I haven't been the biggest fan all of Austin's ideas - and have seriously disagreed with some of them. But he put the hammer on the head a few times during his four years on the Common Council like nobody else. His work on the minimum wage had fantastic results for all of Wisconsin - even this guy agrees. And I thought the sick leave ordinance was an idea that's time will come soon enough. I even failed a political purity test over agreeing with Austin.

And over the last four years, Austin has built up more political capital than most of his peers have during longer durations. And he's behaved as a political venture capitalist - sometimes failing, but winning big when he does win. MEMO TO THE NEWBIES ON THE COMMON COUNCIL: Roll big like Austin did. Think big. Don't be afraid to make risks. Don't hoard your political capital. That's how great things get done in Madison.