Democratic Rural Caucus Will Fight For The Wisconsin Beyond Madison, Milwaukee

A dozen Democratic lawmakers have joined together to fight for rural Wisconsin, saying small towns are in danger of fading away.

Knox is a small logging community in Price County. It is home to 300 people. Town Chairman Raymond Steinbach says it’s hard to be in the shadow of Milwaukee and Madison. He says too many politicians don’t seem to know the budgetary battles small towns face. And, he says, it’s getting tougher.

“You start [with] the federal to the state to the county and all the way down – they just keep pushing it down to where it gets to a town and the town has nowhere else to push it. As they keep doing that to us, we won’t be able to make it.”

State Rep. Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) says towns at the end of the road should be talking about expanding broadband access, but they can’t even get decent cell phone service.

“Now they want to extract our resources. It feels a little bit like some sort of colonization of the north. We have got to realize that rural Wisconsin is Wisconsin. It’s not third-world Wisconsin.”

But the problem isn’t just “up north”. It’s also down south. Rep. Andy Jorgensen (D-Ft. Atkinson) represents Dane, Jefferson, Rock and Walworth Counties. He says his farming communities-especially when it comes to schools and road repair – are near the breaking point.

“There’s lots of borrowing going on just to pay the bills. You can only go so long before you take on water of that magnitude and your ship’s going to start to sink.”

The Democratic Rural Caucus will hold listening sessions starting May 1 in Sparta and Tomah. Other listening sessions will be May 11 in Fennimore and Monroe.