Guest Article from John Smalley

Greetings to LeaderEthics members and friends.

It is a pleasure and an honor for me to take over this year as board president for LeaderEthics. I have been a board member for three years, and now will follow Rusty Cunningham of La Crosse, my former and long-time colleague in the newspaper business, as board chair.

Over time, I have come to understand the importance and value of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations such as LeaderEthics. Especially in today’s hyper-partisan culture, I think orgs such as ours and other like-minded so-called third-party groups can bring relief from the rancor and a pause from the unrelenting noise from both extremes.

One of the things I appreciate about LeaderEthics is the political demographics involved. While our board is always seeking to broaden our general demographic representation, we are a relatively mixed group on the political front. Our board includes people who lean to the right and people who lean to the left. And, of course, plenty of people in between. In short, we are likely not quite as “purple” as the overall state of Wisconsin, but we are not far off.

Executive director Lee Rasch, who founded LeaderEthics in 2018 and still is a primary driver of the organization, reminds us about the challenges of taking on reform efforts in today’s political environment, when the hill to climb can seem more like Mt. Everest than Grandad’s Bluff in La Crosse.

But Rasch is also quick to point out that there is reward in simply making the effort, and that chipping away at an issue does, indeed, raise the visibility and the potential for useful discussion around that issue. So, yes, reform is hard and it comes slowly. But still, we chip away.

Some of those reform efforts are aimed at our state’s out-of-control campaign spending, a topic we have been focused on as an organization and one in which board vice president Judy Nagel of Green Bay is deeply involved. In other efforts, we have partnered with nonprofit organizations to explore potential ballot structure initiatives, such as Final Five voting or Fusion voting, both of which have piqued our interest in recent times. 

In those examples, we know that we are not going to summit Mt. Reform soon and then all will be well. We know it is a slow, iterative process that brings change, not sweeping reform that washes out the old and brings in the new. That’s not how it works. 

Instead, we keep chipping away at that big climb. We combat misinformation whenever we can. We engage with partners who are subject-matter experts and help share their expertise. We provide publicly available programs at no cost, programs that dig into big ideas and big challenges, and that celebrate successes and exemplary behavior by elected officials.

We enjoyed a recent opportunity at our annual meeting to bestow recognition on four most excellent public servants. We honored former Republican state Sen. Dale Schultz of Richland Center, and posthumously honored Schultz’s long-time partner in good government efforts, Democratic state Sen. Tim Cullen of Janesville, with the Legacy of Ethical Leadership Award. 

And with our annual LeaderEthics Award, we recognized two outstanding county clerks, Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat from Rock County, and Lisa Freiberg, a Republican from Fond du Lac County. 

One of our goals at LeaderEthics is that all elected officials in Wisconsin would follow the lead of Schultz, Cullen, Tollefson, and Freiberg. When we see examples of how to do it right, we like to shine a light on that effort. And those four honorees most definitely fit the bill.

I am also excited to plant a seed now about a great LeaderEthics program coming in mid-September. We will be a part of Viterbo University’s Constitution Day program, an event that will explore changes in the local news environment in recent years and provide updates on creative nonprofit news efforts around the state and nation.

Thank you for your interest in LeaderEthics. Please visit our website at leaderethicswi.org to stay current on upcoming programs and other events. And if you are not yet a member of LeaderEthics, please consider joining. A link to membership is also on our website.

John Smalley is the former editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. He currently serves as Board President for LeaderEthics.