Wisconsin "Lets The People Decide" On Iraq

[Alejandro Valle Baeza <valle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wisconsin "Lets The People Decide" On Iraq

Znet

by Ben Manski

August 09, 2006

George Bush recently defended Donald Rumsfeld on the basis that responsibility for matters of war and peace are his and his alone, saying, "I'm the decider and I decide what's best." On April 4, the people of Wisconsin begged to differ.

Voting in the tiny villages of the North Woods and the Door Peninsula, in the regional urban centers of Madison and La Crosse, and in the small cities that are the heart of this heartland state, three-fifths of voters cast ballots for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Wisconsin voted "no" to the occupation, and as importantly, "no" to Bush's self-elevation from presider to decider. Small town America voted, and the world sat up and took notice.

The Roots of the Campaign

How did it happen?

A century ago, "Let the people decide!" was a motto of Wisconsin's Progressive movement. Led by Wisconsin's La Follettes, Progressives took up the democratic demand of their predecessors-the Populists, Republicans and '76ers-that the people themselves should exercise power to decide vital matters of state. La Follette's Progressives lived up to their name and made real progress in democratizing state government, in particular, creating a municipal citizens initiative process. As a result, since 1911, citizens of Wisconsin cities and villages have exercised the right to initiate legislation at the municipal level. This "direct legislation" initiative process lives on today in Wisconsin's State Statutes and its political culture.

Nearly a century later, a similar process was used in Vermont on March 1, 2005, when over 40 municipalities passed resolutions calling on the US government to withdraw militarily from Iraq, and on the State of Vermont to bring its National Guard units home. News of the Vermont vote set discussions in motion among members of the Four Lakes Green Party in Dane County. Based in Wisconsin's capital of Madison, they knew Madisonians had voted against the war in Vietnam in a citizen-initiated plebiscite in 1969. Given that history, the inspiration of Vermont and Wisconsin's own Direct Legislation statute, they asked some basic questions:

o What would it take to initiate a citywide vote on withdrawal from Iraq?
o What obstacles were there to using the initiative process for a resolution of this kind?
o How should the initiative campaign be organized, and could citizens of other Wisconsin municipalities do the same thing?

The Four Lakes Greens examined these questions and more, and just days after the vote in Vermont, began preparations for a troop withdrawal vote in Madison. They also brought a proposal to the Wisconsin Green Party, asking the state party to launch a statewide troop withdrawal campaign. After some deliberation, the Wisconsin Green Party did just that and the Wisconsin campaign for withdrawal from Iraq was born.

Full article: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=10729