Next week, Madison students will have the opportunity to make national news by voting to keep Wisconsin on track to becoming a national leader in education, sustainability and social justice. As this year’s election cycle at long last comes to a close, young people across the state will have the power to move Wisconsin back to the dogmatic and failed free-marketeering of yesterday, or toward the smart, progressive governance that has been the state’s staple for over a century.

With all the weighty statewide races concluding next Tuesday, it will be easy to lose sight of the local contests that will define Madison in the years to come. Most notably, the State Assembly race in District 77, which encompasses campus and a substantial portion of the West Side, will hinge on student turn-out. Like in the statewide race, the distinctions between the 77th Assembly candidates are very clear.

On one side there is the democratic candidate Brett Hulsey, a long-term denizen of the Dane County Board hoping to at long last inherit the Assembly seat of retiring democratic Representative Spencer Black. Hailing from Oklahoma, Hulsey has done his part to make small changes on the local level to help preserve our green spaces. Unfortunately, his environmental credibility abandons him once one considers the nearly $200,000 he earned consulting with the coal and gas industry to “green-wash” a dirty coal power plant on the Mississippi. Nothing is more valuable to the barons of fossil-fuel power than an “environmentalist” willing to sell out and lend his credibility to a pollution-heavy project. Everyone needs to put food on the table, but Hulsey’s ready abandonment of principle should make voters hesitant of where his interests would lay in the capitol.

On the other side, the Wisconsin Green Party candidate Ben Manski appears to be everything Brett Hulsey is not. Manski grew up on Madison’s West Side and attended school here all the way through Law School at the University of Wisconsin. He led campaigns that began the student anti-sweat shop movement, fought destructive mining by Exxon in the North Woods and won the only tuition freeze in UW history. Manski has also been at the forefront of the fight to protect our democratic institutions on local and national levels, including the fight to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited, undisclosed sums of money on political campaigns. In short, he has proven himself capable of advocating for a variety of issues, connecting disparate groups of people to achieve substantive victories.

Unfortunately, his long history of agitation against moneyed and trenchant corporate interests, along with his third party label, have opened him up for some off-based criticism this election. How could such a passionate individual be able to work in the State Assembly if is he isn’t a Democrat? Many high-profile Democrats have already answered that question by endorsing Manski for the State Assembly. As former Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager observed: “Smart Democrats will vote for Manski.”

Mark Pocan, current Representative of the 78th Assembly district, which covers downtown and the East Side, said Manski “would be an ally of mine” and “would work closely with the Democrats [to] help craft and advance our agenda.” Pocan would know, as he has “worked with Ben on a number of issues [including] social justice, the environment and clean elections.”

Wisconsin has not elected a third party candidate for nearly 70 years, and should Manski prevail in next Tuesday’s election, the victory would send shock-waves across the state and nation. If the two-party system’s iron-clad grasp on our democracy should ever be loosened, Madison is best poised to take the lead in showing the rest of the state and country that parties are not as important as the principles of the candidates themselves.

Students have a clear choice in this race. Either vote for Brett Hulsey who does not understand what it is to be a Badger in 2010 nor to pay for a tuition bill that invariably grows every year, or Ben Manski, who has lived here nearly his entire life and who has made a career out of fighting for student rights.

Manski is the only candidate in the race who will fight for full funding of our university system and the lowering of tuition. Hulsey just doesn’t understand the issue and seems content to tell students to just deal with the rising costs of their education.

On social justice issues, Manski will introduce an Equal Rights amendment that will give every citizen the right to full marriage equality and strengthen civil rights protections across the board. Manski will also endeavor to end the drug war and redirect money being spent on ever-expanding prison budgets toward rehabilitation programs and the education system.

Hulsey has no such plans, and even if he did his ambitions would be hog-tied by over-bearing partisan leadership in the Capitol.

The rest of the state looks to Madison and the 77th for leadership. As students we have a real chance to provide that leadership in the Assembly. Just like the other independent Wisconsinite on the ballot, Russ Feingold, Ben Manski needs your vote to keep Wisconsin moving forward.

Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health and is an active member of Ben Manski’s campaign for Assembly.