Amid controversy over his refusal to endorse a Progressive Dane Party candidate for mayor, Ald. Tom Powell, District 5, announced he will not run for reelection to City Council.
Powell endorsed independent candidate Dave Cieslewicz for mayor instead of PD candidate Bert Zipperer, breaking an agreement with PD, which had endorsed Powell in the past, not to endorse the party’s opponents. As a result, PD refused to endorse Powell for reelection to the City Council this spring, and Powell in turn decided not to renew his PD membership.
Powell said candidates should not be bound by the pledge between PD and those it endorses.
“If you trust a candidate and elect them, you should trust them to speak freely,” Powell said.
When candidates seek PD endorsement, they must sign a contract binding them to help with party building, host engagements for the party and not endorse PD opponents. Powell decided not to sign the contract in late December.
PD co-chair Stephanie Rearick said Powell signed the agreement three times in the past and should have spoken earlier if he thought the agreement was flawed. She said the party voted 19 to 11 to keep the endorsement condition for candidates because it did not want to bend the rules for one candidate.
“When a slate of candidates work together and support each other, we have a more unified body and can maintain accountability,” Rearick said. “It is extremely uncommon for politicians to feel accountable to the group of people who elect them.”
PD currently has seven members on the City Council to promote PD agenda for affordable housing, land use and the minimum wage. Rearick said the party formed as an alternative to the Democratic Party, which, to some members’ tastes, was becoming too moderate and corporate-controlled.
PD member Ald. Brenda Konkel, District 2, said Powell’s decision to withdraw from PD would not hurt the party’s strength, although party members will miss him.
“If we can keep someone on the Council in his place, it will not be a horrible loss,” Konkel said. “We miss Tom, he was clearly a strong voice, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a replacement.”
She said the party voted nearly unanimously to welcome Powell back for endorsement should he decide to sign the agreement.
Powell said he would come back only if the agreement was eliminated. He said PD should be endorsing candidates based solely on their convictions for city policy.
“It’s how you vote, not who you endorse,” Powell said. “You’ll never build a party through coercion or convulsion.”
Powell said the conflict with PD was an “irritant,” but he decided not to run for reelection in order to finish his doctorate in music composition at the University of Wisconsin in time for his May deadline. He will remain on the staff of Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, however.
“I need a month to work on my lecture recital, and I knew a three-month-long campaign of knocking on doors would be grueling,” Powell said.
He said he plans to remain in politics and run for City Council in another district in two years.
Powell has endorsed Robbie Webber of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin to succeed him in District 5. She is running against College Democrat state chair Jason Stephany and UW student Tim Corver. PD has not decided whom it will endorse in Powell’s place.
