FRINGE POLITICS OR MAINSTREAM?

"Progressive Dane believes that ordinary citizens should control
public policies at the community and national levels. We support tax
justice, better social services, equality in public education,
affordable housing, and public transportation."

Hey, us too! Where do we sign up? You can't quibble with a group
committed to the community's best interests, and that platform sounds
reasonable enough.

Unfortunately, in practice, Progressive Dane a 12-year-old third party
with established influence in Madison politics is more committed to
enacting an ideological agenda than promoting communitywide interests.

Some members of the group have shown great individual commitment to
citywide interests Mike Verveer and Bert Zipperer come to mind. But
the broader group's extreme agenda has sparked friction between
Madison's mayor and Progressive Dane leaders over economic development
issues. The group's City Council cohort appears poised to deep-six
mayoral commission recommendations to reform local government to
foster future economic growth.

A similarly impractical ideological rigidity also underlies the past
week's flareup between the group and city police over drug law
enforcement, which spilled onto these pages this week in an unusual
and pointed criticism of Progressive Dane by the local police union
leader.

There's more: Following Progressive Dane's platform, not only should
police refrain from busting people for using illegal drugs, city
government shouldn't test any of its employees for drug use "without
probable cause" in other words, only after the snowplow driver nicks
the elderly pedestrian in the crosswalk.

Progressive Dane also opposes the "criminalization" of loitering, an
ordinance that police have used to disperse open-air drug dealers.
Group members say drugs are a public health issue, not a "law
enforcement concern." At least until the dealers get out their guns
and start shooting people.

Practical concerns rarely intrude on Progressive Dane agenda-setting.
The group won a local minimum wage battle but has landed in court over
the legality of the mandate. The group's affordable housing ordinance
has been declared a success with zero units completed since the City
Council approved the measure in February.

You can see where we're going. Exposed to the real world, Progressive
Dane's platform seems a bit wobbly. In PDerfect world, for example,
nobody has to worry about money. Progressive Dane favors door-to-door
bus service for older folks and the disabled as long as riders don't
have to pay a surcharge for it.

Can't or won't pay your rent? No problem, says Progressive Dane: "We oppose
displacing anyone from current traditional housing or transient shelter"
unless occupants have somewhere else to go. What if landlords won't play
along? The city could yank the licensing that Progressive Dane would require
of everyone renting out three or more apartments. Progressive Dane's
long-term goal is to ban housing policies that "discriminate" based on
socioeconomic status: Just because you can't pay for it shouldn't mean you
can't live there.

Such inclusionary politics can be confusing at times. Progressive Dane
would like to expand government powers to take away private property
if it's not being put to good use especially land held by commercial
interests. But at the same time, PD wouldn't let the city condemn
anybody's house, no matter how dilapidated, "unless there is a clear
benefit to the neighborhood and a substantial majority of the
residents of Madison." In other words, never.

Progressive Dane certainly favors putting your tax dollars to work as
many of them as possible. The group opposes contracting out any work
that could be done more expensively by city employees, for example,
and would add bureaucracy and cost to remaining city contracting by
eschewing established criteria such as who can do the best job at the
lowest cost. Bidders would best compete based on their environmental
purity and hiring practices.

Even that's not enough: Progressive Dane also wants to handle
contractor payroll. "We support the establishment of record-keeping
procedures which will require all companies contracting with the city
of Madison to report the wages that will be paid to all workers they
employ as part of the contracted work, including the compensation paid
to managers and executives."

Even cheekier, the group wants to elect its members to public office
on the taxpayer dime, through full public financing of municipal
elections. And they want noncitizens to be able to cast ballots.

Maybe it's not fair to say Progressive Dane doesn't think about money.
One favored fund-raising idea would tax pavement no kidding to raise
money for transportation, as long as the cash isn't used to subsidize
the demon automobile.

So what's next? Laws regulating the air that we breathe? Progressive
Dane already has a platform on indoor air quality.

With Madison School Board elections on the horizon, Progressive Dane
hopes to expand its existing influence into education policy. Will the
group emphasize educational quality or tackle the financing crisis
affecting many districts? Issue No. 1: "Military recruitment of young
adults on school grounds."

Still, this could be all of Madison's agenda unless saner heads
prevail in this spring's local elections.