STEVENS POINT — Once again, in the midst of a pandemic, some Wisconsinites are being asked to vote. This time it’s a May 12 special election in the heavily gerrymandered 7th Congressional District.
Ironically, in the year we mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, founded by a man with deep roots in northern Wisconsin, we might end up sending one of the most anti-environmental politicians in state history to Washington.
That would be Tom Tiffany, the science-denying state senator from Minocqua. His opponent, Tricia Zunker of Wausau, says that in the midst of the pandemic and the challenges of climate change, it’s time to elect someone with an appreciation of science to Congress. But frankly, if she did nothing at all in D.C., citizens of the 7th District in northern Wisconsin would be better served than having Tiffany doing his dirty deeds at taxpayer expense.
The list of Tiffany’s science denial and anti-environmental tactics is so long that it boggles the mind. Add to that the fact that he has consistently championed laws overriding local control and deeply hurting schools and local governments in his own Senate district.
I’ve been covering issues impacting people in central and northern Wisconsin for almost 40 years, and I can say without a doubt Tiffany is the most disreputable politician I’ve ever encountered up here. I covered the Wausau area when state Sen. Walter John Chilsen, a Republican, and U.S. Rep. David Obey, a Democrat, were their parties’ standard-bearers. Both were great men. Joseph Leean, the Waupaca Republican, accomplished great things for his state Senate district. And of course, Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson of Clear Lake in northern Wisconsin is a national hero. Tiffany, on the other hand, is a divisive bully who bends the truth beyond recognition to serve his extreme agenda while trampling over the rights of others. Frankly, at my age, I have better things to do than rail about a slouch who is in a congressional district I was gerrymandered out of, but some tasks need doing no matter what.
As his opponent has noted, what a time to send a science denier to Washington. Want some examples? Tiffany threatened UW System faculty and leadership over their research on climate change, which he has called “theoretical.” At UW-Stevens Point, he threatened to cut off funding if professors continued to conduct climate change research. He went so far as to order the university to stop using terms referring to climate change in university documents.
Want more? Guess who led the charge to eliminate 18 positions from the Department of Natural Resources’ science bureau? Yep, it was Tiffany. When former DNR Secretary George Meyer, now executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, criticized the move, Tiffany dismissed the respected conservation leader as a “paid lobbyist.”
Local control? He was at or near the forefront of the charge to pass more than 30 state laws altering or removing local controls. Ask the opponents of frac sand mines in western Wisconsin about that. Tiffany, who professes to be a property rights advocate, had no interest in the rights of those little folks. He’s certainly not interested in the private property rights of rural Wisconsinites impacted by high-capacity wells or those who have seen their private wells polluted by manure from large animal confinement facilities.
Speaking of mines, he authored an infamous law weakening Wisconsin’s mining rules, claiming his law, written by mining interests, wouldn’t degrade the environment. After it passed, he changed his tune, saying mining can’t be done without damage.
Tiffany, of course, faithfully backed Scott Walker during the former governor’s slash-and-burn treatment of universities, public employees, local governments and, of course K-12 schools, even though some of the schools and local governments hurt the most were in northern Wisconsin.
His campaign materials say he’s a “successful small business operator.” I guess that’s true if you call not paying state income taxes successful. He had a streak from 2006 through 2010 of not paying any personal income taxes. He started paying in 2011 when he went to the state Legislature and earned more than $58,000 in salary and reimbursements in addition to taxpayer-funded health insurance. His business interests, Willow Inc. and Wisconsin River Cruises, were similarly “successful” enough not to pay income taxes for many years, either. And his excursion boat tours on the Willow Flowage and Wisconsin River were able to operate at all because of state programs that protected and cleaned up those bodies of water.
The words of an old song go, “The opposite of truth is hypocrisy.” Those lines were written for the likes of Tiffany.
Bill Berry of Stevens Point writes a semimonthly column for The Capital Times. billnick@charter.net
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State Sen. Thomas Tiffany, R-Minocqua, speaks May 29, 2015, at the State Capitol in Madison.
About the columnist
Bill Berry is a self-employed writer and editor who contributes to state and national publications. His Capital Times columns cover an array of topics, but he specializes in conservation, agriculture and sustainable land use.
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