This story is part of our “PURPLE REIGN” feature. Read more here.
Various Drummers
Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette has been the most successful third-party presidential candidate from Wisconsin, but he is not the only one. Among third-party and independent candidates, there are three other presidential candidates and two vice presidential candidates with deep ties to Wisconsin.
George Edwin Taylor
First Black Presidential Candidate: Taylor worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in La Crosse before moving to Iowa, where he began his political career. In 1904, the National Black Freedom Party nominated him for president, but he failed to win more than 2,000 votes nationwide.
Emil Seidel
Socialist Vice Presidential Candidate: Seidel was the first Socialist mayor of Milwaukee (1910-1912) and the first Socialist to lead a major American city. He was Eugene Debs’ running mate in the 1912 Socialist election, winning about 6% of the national vote.
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John Schmitz
Third-party presidential candidate: Milwaukee-born Schmitz was a Republican congressman from California (1970-1973) and conspiracy theorist. In 1972, the right-wing American Independent Party nominated Schmitz to replace fellow Milwaukee native Arthur Bremer, who shot and paralyzed former Alabama Governor George Wallace. Schmitz came in a distant third, receiving only 1.4% of the national vote.
Frank Seidler
Socialist Presidential Candidate: Zeidler was one of the last socialist mayors of Milwaukee (1948-1960). When he ran for president as the socialist candidate in 1976, he received about 6,000 votes nationwide, most of which came from Wisconsin, particularly Milwaukee County.
Bill Dyke
Third Party Vice Presidential Candidate: Dyke was the last Republican elected as Madison’s officially nonpartisan mayor (1969-1973). He joined former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox’s American Independent Party candidate in 1976, but distanced himself from Maddox’s racist positions. They won 0.2% of the national vote.
Pat Lucy
Independent vice presidential candidate: Lucey served as Democratic governor of Wisconsin (1971-1977) and U.S. ambassador to Mexico (1977-1979). In 1980, he ran as an independent for president as the running mate of Illinois Republican Congressman John Anderson. The two finished third with 6.6% of the national vote.
Promote diversification
For most of Wisconsin’s history, key state and federal elected offices have been held by heterosexual, white, males. Today, the governor’s office is the last to be held by a woman, a person of color, or an openly member of the LGBTQ community.
Dena Smith
First woman elected to statewide office: Smith was an aide to her husband, State Treasurer Warren Smith, and was appointed to serve the remaining two-year term after his death in 1957. After serving one term, she was elected to the office as a Republican in 1960, serving until her own death in 1968.
Herb Cole
Wisconsin’s first Jewish senator. At the time of his election to the Senate (1989-2013), Kahl was the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and a former CEO of a family-owned department store and supermarket chain. He served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Aging.
Shirley Abrahamson
First woman to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court: Abrahamson was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1976 and served four 10-year terms, retiring in 2019 after a Supreme Court record 43 years in office. She became the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court in 1996, but in 2015 Republicans passed a constitutional amendment that allowed conservative justices to oust the liberal Abrahamson from her seat on the Supreme Court. Currently, women hold six of the Supreme Court’s seven seats.
Vell Phillips
First Black person elected to statewide office: Phillips won her election for secretary of state in 1978 after a campaign that made no mention of race or gender. She was already the first woman and first Black member of the Milwaukee City Council, the first woman judge in Milwaukee County and the first Black judge in Wisconsin. She served a four-year term before being defeated by her predecessor, Doug LaFollette, in the 1982 Democratic primary.
Steve Gunderson
Wisconsin’s first openly gay member of the House of Representatives. Gunderson represented Wisconsin’s western 3rd Congressional District from 1981 to 1997. After coming out as gay during a House session in 1994, he postponed a planned retirement to win his final term. He is the first openly gay Republican member of the House of Representatives in the nation to be re-elected.
Tammy Baldwin
Wisconsin’s first woman in Congress: Elected in 1998 to represent Madison’s 2nd District, Baldwin became the first person in the nation to openly come out as gay and win an open House seat. In 2012, the Democrat became Wisconsin’s first woman and first openly gay senator.
Gwen Moore
Moore, Wisconsin’s first Black member of Congress, won his Milwaukee 4th Congressional District seat in 2004. He is currently serving his 10th term as a Democratic congressman.
Points to note:
Glenn Wise, the first woman to hold a constitutional office (Republican, appointed Secretary of State, 1955-57); Russ Feingold, whose election made Wisconsin one of the first two states represented by two Jewish senators (Democrat, 1993-2011); Lewis Butler, the first Black Supreme Court justice (appointed 2004-08); Mark Pocan, the first openly gay member of the U.S. House of Representatives, succeeding another openly gay member of the House (Democrat, elected to the 2nd Congressional District, 2012); Mandela Barnes, the first Black man elected statewide (Democrat, Lieutenant Governor, 2019-23); Steve Kagen, the first Jewish member of Wisconsin’s House of Representatives in 78 years, succeeding Milwaukee socialist Victor Berger (Democrat, representing northeastern Wisconsin, 2007-11).
Wisconsin State Legislature
Some members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation have played extraordinary roles on the national stage. Below are some of the state’s most influential representatives.
Victor Berger
America’s First Socialist Congressman: A leader of Milwaukee’s socialist movement, Berger won his first term in Congress in 1910, lost his seat in 1912, and regained it in 1918. But when he was convicted of violating federal law for his nonviolent opposition to World War I, the House refused to grant him his seat, and again after he won a special election. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and he returned to office from 1923 to 1929.
Alexander Wiley
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Wiley, a Republican, was Wisconsin’s second longest serving senator (1939-63). He served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees and championed the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Clement Zablocki
Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee: Zablocki represented Milwaukee’s 4th District as a Democrat from 1949 until his death in 1983. He lost a special Democratic primary to replace Joe McCarthy in the U.S. Senate in 1957. During his final four terms as a congressman, Zablocki led the Foreign Relations Committee and introduced the War Powers Resolution, which limited the president’s military powers.
Henry Royce
House Banking Chairman: A Democrat, Royce represented northern Milwaukee County (1955-83). He served as chairman of the House Banking Committee and the Joint Economic Committee and wrote the Community Reinvestment Act, which ended redlining and made bank lending less fair.
Dave Obey
Appropriations Chairman: Obey represented northwest Wisconsin’s 7th District as a Democrat and served from 1969 to 2011. He chaired the Appropriations Committee for three terms and was the committee’s ranking Democrat for four terms. Obey was responsible for writing the House Code of Ethics.
Jim Sensenbrenner
Judiciary Chairman: Sensenbrenner was elected as a Republican in 1978 to represent the suburban 9th District (later renumbered the 5th). By the time he retired in 2021, he was Wisconsin’s longest-serving House member. Sensenbrenner served two terms as chairman of the Science Committee and three terms as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He authored the Patriot Act, which expanded federal anti-terrorism powers.
Paul Ryan
Speaker of the House: Ryan represented southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District as a Republican from 1999 to 2019. In 2012, the Republican Party nominated him as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential candidate, the first time a Wisconsin native had been on a major party’s White House nominee. Ryan served two terms as Budget Chairman and led the Ways and Means Committee before being elected Speaker in 2015, making him the first Wisconsin member to hold that position.
All of the President’s Badgers
For nearly 160 years, presidents have appointed Wisconsin leaders to key positions in the federal government. Check out some of the governors, congressmen and other notable Wisconsin residents who have been appointed to cabinets and the Supreme Court.
Alexander Randall
The first U.S. cabinet member from Wisconsin: Randall served as the state’s Republican governor from 1858 to 1862. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him first as a foreign service officer and then as assistant postmaster general. After Randall’s boss died in 1866, President Andrew Johnson promoted him to postmaster general, a position he held until 1869.
Karl Schurz
Secretary of the Interior: A German immigrant, Schurz lived in Watertown when he led the Wisconsin delegation to the Republican convention that nominated Lincoln in 1860. He later served as a senator from Missouri (1869-75) before being appointed secretary of the interior (1877-81) by President Rutherford Hayes. But he is best known for the line, “My country, whether right or wrong, will be kept right if it is right, and corrected if it is wrong.”
Melvin Laird
Secretary of Defense: Laird represented northwest Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district as a Republican in the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1969. When newly elected President Richard Nixon appointed him Secretary of Defense, Laird became the first member of Congress to be selected for the position. He served until 1973, after which he briefly joined the White House staff as assistant secretary for domestic policy.
William Rehnquist
Chief Justice: Born in Milwaukee and raised in Shorewood, Rehnquist was an assistant attorney general when President Richard Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court. He served from 1972 to 1986 before being appointed Chief Justice by President Ronald Reagan. Rehnquist led the Supreme Court until his death in 2005.
Les Aspin
Secretary of Defense: Aspin represented southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District as a Democratic congressman from 1971 to 1993 and served four terms as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. After serving just one year as President Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of Defense, he served on several advisory committees until his death in 1995.
Donna Shalala
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Shalala is a former president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1988-93) who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services (1993-2001) under the Clinton Administration before being elected Democratic Representative from Florida to the House of Representatives (2019-21).
Tommy Thompson
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Thompson is Wisconsin’s longest-serving governor, a Republican, serving in the state’s top office from 1987 to 2001. He resigned to become President George W. Bush’s first secretary of Health and Human Services, a position he held until 2005. Thompson ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008 and for the Senate in 2012, then was appointed chancellor of the University of Wisconsin System from 2020 to 2022.
Reince Priebus
White House chief of staff: Priebus led the Wisconsin Republican Party from 2007 to 2011 and the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017. His stint as President Donald Trump’s first chief of staff lasted just a year, but he returned to the Republican stage as chairman of the Milwaukee Host Committee for the 2024 party convention.
This article is part of the July issue of Milwaukee Magazine, available on newsstands now or at milwaukeemag.com/shop . Subscribe to be the first to receive the latest issue.
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