Political opponents unite in defeat
Voters take down two fighters on Madison city council
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Incumbent Alds. Rebecca Kemble and Paul Skidmore both lost to challengers in the April 6 election.
The city councilâs staunchest backer of the police was defeated in the April 6 election. So was one of the cityâs most progressive reformers.Â
Political newcomer Nikki Conklin ousted 10-term incumbent Paul Skidmore with 56 percent of the vote in a contentious and expensive race on the cityâs far west side. Skidmore was strongly backed by the Madison police union which in a February press release called him âthe undisputed leaderâ on the council for âworking to meet the needs of public safety in Madison.â Skidmore leaned hard into a pro-police message in his campaign literature; one piece features a quote from former Madison police Chief Mike Koval â âDefunding the Police Plans are putting you and me in dangerâ â and a photo of a
No leadership, office location or partisan motivation discernible for group funding local political ads
Over the past year, Madison’s billboards have gradually become bleaker and far more political in nature. What used to be local advertisement territory is now also home to a mix of political attacks and endorsements.
This spring, billboards paid for by the “Community for Responsible Government” emerged, thanking specific city alders for “trying to keep Madison safe,” according to Tone Madison. But, very little information exists surrounding CRG.
Searching for them using IRS’s nonprofit search app yields no results. CRG declined to comment when asked by The Badger Herald to provide further details surrounding their organization.
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Give me a party
SaveMadison billboards
This fall billboards popped up around Madison making a simple case. Shootings are up 78 percent in the city and yet some members of the Madison Common Council want to defund the police.Â
Both assertions are essentially true. To be clear, shots fired incidents are up by almost 80 percent, not the number of people hit by gunfire. But it seems to me to be in bounds to call these âshootings.â The dictionary definition of shooting is âthe action or practice of shooting with a gun.âÂ
And itâs also true that some Madison alders, most members of the local party Progressive Dane, support some form of âdefundingâ the police. Whether or not they actually used the word, theyâve supported policies that can be fairly characterized as critical of the police department or shifting resources away from it. The word âdefundâ has been interpreted to mean anything from literally shutting down police departm
Eric Hovde behind âSave Madisonâ billboards
Progressive Dane alders targeted for stance on police funding
Eric Hovde owns several commercial and residential properties in downtown Madison.
Former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde says he saw âcrime escalatingâ in Madison and decided to do something about it. Just not publicly.
This summer the downtown Madison property owner quietly spearheaded an effort, dubbed âSave Madison,â aimed at alders who, he claims, want to âdefund the police.âÂ
âIn the last few years, public safety has really declined. Particularly in this last year, rather meaningfully so,â Hovde tells
Isthmus. âThe council has done nothing but attack the police. I mean, how many oversight boards do we need? And at the same time this is happening, weâve had an 80 percent increase in shootings.â (This is a reference to police data on incidents of âshots fired,â not individuals who