Isthmus, The Progressive: Randy Bryce Stands Tall

Isthmus: Standing Tall, November 2018

Despite defeat, the “Iron Stache” inspired working class supporters

Randy Bryce told supporters in Racine: “Don’t hang your head. We fought one hell of a fight.” Photo by George Petrovich.

Randy Bryce’s 17-month quest to succeed U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan came to an end this week, but on Tuesday night, the Democrat and 54-year-old Racine County ironworker reassured supporters who packed his election night party that he — and they — weren’t going to go away.

“No, we’re not done yet — we’re just getting started,” Bryce told a cheering crowd at a bank-turned-party hall in the Uptown neighborhood of Racine after taking the stage to acknowledge his loss in the 1st District Congressional race. Republican Brian Steil, a corporate lawyer, former Ryan aide,and member of the UW Board of Regents, was crowned the winner a little more than an hour after the polls closed on Election Day with 55 percent of the vote.

In the end, despite a well-funded campaign and an enthusiastic base of supporters and volunteers, Bryce was unable to crack the solidly Republican district.

 

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The Progressive: Randy Bryce, in Defeat, Looks at the “Whole Picture”, November 2018

Instead of gloom, Bryce and his supporters seemed to exude an air of gritty resolve

Randy Bryce on Madison’s Capitol Square this spring. Photo by Ken Fager.

Democrat Randy Bryce didn’t win his race for Congress. But as he thanked his supporters on Election Night, after the race was called for Republican Brian Steil, the fifty-four-year-old ironworker took a longer view.

“I’ve said it many times,” Bryce told the crowd of staffers, volunteers, and admirers who filled the hall in Racine, Wisconsin. “It’s not just about just winning one seat—the First District Congressional seat in southeast Wisconsin. It was never about that.

“It was about the whole picture. It was about taking back control of Congress. It was about standing up for working people. It was about pointing out the fact that if you’re an African American in this district, you’re in a horrible place, and things need to change.”

Given the heady excitement that Bryce’s campaign for the seat now held by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan had sparked among Democrats, the loss might have been expected to cast a shadow over the evening. Yet instead of gloom, Bryce and his supporters seemed to exude an air of gritty resolve.

The Progressive: On the Hard Path to Prison Reform

On the Hard Path to Prison Reform: An Interview with Heather Ann Thompson, November 2017

 

Dr. Heather Ann Thompson, professor of history and Afroamerican and African studies at University of Michigan.

Published in 2016, University of Michigan historian Heather Ann Thompson’s Pulitzer-prize-winning history of the 1971 Attica Prison Uprising, Blood In the Water, was released in paperback this fall. Thompson was in Milwaukee recently to speak at a series of events spotlighting mass incarceration. She spoke with The Progressive contributor Erik Gunn about the lessons of Attica and the prospects for decarceration in the era of President Donald Trump…

The Progressive: The Case for Mercy

The Case for Mercy: Some of the Unlikeliest People to Oppose the Death Penalty, October 2017

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Late one afternoon in February 2014, ten-year-old Hailey Owens was abducted from a street near her home in Springfield, Missouri. Police say her abductor raped her, then shot her, then wrapped her body in garbage bags and stuffed it in a plastic tote…

 

The Progressive: Protesters Convicted For ‘Parading’ Against Death Penalty

Protesters Convicted For ‘Parading’ Against the Death Penalty at the Supreme Court, June 2017

Photo by Claire Anderson.

On an overcast day this past January, eighteen people stood on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court and unfurled a banner that read “STOP EXECUTIONS!”

For that nonviolent act, all those involved were arrested under a law that makes it a crime to “parade, stand or move in processions or assemblages” or to display a “flag, banner or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization or movement” on the marble plaza and steps of Supreme Court building.

This week, twelve of those eighteen went on trial in a case presided over by D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Salerno. On Thursday, June 29, 2017, all twelve were convicted…

The Progressive: Refusing to Make a Monster out of God

Refusing to Make a Monster out of God: Shane Claiborne on the Death Penalty, April 2017

Photo by Brian Yap.

Writer and activist Shane Claiborne spoke with The Progressive about why his faith calls him to the movement to abolish the death penalty—a movement that crosses religious and secular lines and even brings together the families of crime victims and those condemned to die.

The Progressive: The Little School District That Could

The Little School District That Could, March 2017

Photo by Victor Bjorkund.

Now, after stripping public employees of their union rights, squeezing the ability of public schools to raise revenues, and throwing open the doors for private schools around the state to get public money by expanding Milwaukee’s controversial school voucher program, the state’s Republican lawmakers had come back for more. In a measure aimed exclusively at Racine, the state legislature wiped out the Racine Unified School district’s long-standing tradition . . .

The Progressive: How David Clarke Became American Right’s Sheriff

How David Clarke Became American Right’s Sheriff, December 2016

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Just two days after Donald Trump’s stunning upset victory on Election Day, the short lists of prospective Cabinet members for the new administration began turning up in the press. Amid familiar and predictable national GOP figures and business leaders, two men whose highest office to date were in county government stood out—both as prospects to head the Department of Homeland Security. One was the just-ousted former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio. The other was the still-sitting sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, David Clarke. . . .