My blog Monday on Red Fred Clark may have made you think that, among other things, I am skeptical about the value of the Progressive Era in Wisconsin politics.

Which you may think odd for a graduate of, yes, Robert M. La Follette High School in Madison. (For some reason, our sports teams were named the Lancers, not the Fighting Bobs.) Voting reforms like direct election of U.S. senators, primary elections and referenda were indeed worthwhile reforms. The ballooning growth of government — in response to actual problems, it should be noted — and the reflexive distrust of business and the “rich” (that is, anyone with more money than you) stand as progressivism’s less positive contributions to the body politic.

Another feature of the Progressive Era was the concept of “government by expert.” To a point, it makes sense to, for instance, have experts in forestry oversee conservation efforts, as Theodore Roosevelt hired. But the executive branch, which manages the government, is not the legislative branch, which is supposed to make policy.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column by outdoors writer Paul A. Smith opines that the environment in Wisconsin is going to hell because of — the horror! — politics:

With an eye to scientific resource management, William Aberg, Aldo Leopold and contemporaries helped create a nonpartisan conservation commission in Wisconsin in the late 1920s. The idea was to keep politics out.

“Conservation cannot afford to enter the political arena as a candidate or partisan.” said Aberg, a Madison attorney, former chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Commission and 2000 inductee in the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame.

Though Aberg was a prominent Republican, he was adamant about keeping politics separate from resource management.

Leopold, the lauded University of Wisconsin professor and author, expressed his contempt for politics in his book “Round River”: “I believe that many of the economic forces inside the modern body-politic are pathogenic in respect to harmony with land.” …

Oh, those robber baron capitalists … whose tax dollars pay the largest share of government costs.

Smith has for a long time advocated for returning control of the Department of Natural Resources to the Natural Resources Board and away from the governor. Gov. Tommy Thompson gave himself (with legislative approval, of course) the authority to name the DNR head in 1995, despite the opposition of Attorney General James Doyle. Gov. James Doyle, however, decided to keep Thompson’s appointment ability.

But with the “Wisconsin is open for business” mantra espoused by the administration, to say many in the conservation community are wary is an understatement.

The legislature has made others nervous by introducing and moving quickly on several measures, including AB99, a deer hunting bill that would take away the DNR’s ability to use Earn-A-Buck regulations and T-Zone antlerless deer hunts.

“At some point in Wisconsin history, our citizens decided there needed to be one more buffer between elected officials and our natural resources, and that is the NRB,” said Christine Thomas of Stevens Point, board member since 2004 and dean of the College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point, speaking at last week’s board meeting in Madison. “In my opinion, this board is one of the best things about Wisconsin.”

Thomas made it clear she’d prefer the legislature stay out of conservation issues. Although most on the board argued for more aggressive herd control measures for 2011, it eventually approved a 2011 deer hunting season format without Earn-A-Buck and without an October gun hunt for antlerless deer.

“We live in a democracy, and the people will have their say at the end of the day,” Thomas said. “But when it comes time to make a tough decision, this board looks at all the information and over time has done what’s best for the resource. You don’t know what you get out of the political process.”

No, we know exactly what we get out of the political process — democracy, as messy and slow and occasionally disagreeable for your tastes as it is. What we get out of the political process is representation of the voters and taxpayers, some of whom, it may surprise Thomas to know, see, for instance, revitalizing the state’s economy as more important than following the whims of the (unelected) Natural Resources Board.

Smith quotes Herb Behnke of Shawano, who was appointed to the first state Natural Resources Board in 1968, but inadvertently identifies as a virtue something that is not:

Most DNR regulations are made by “administrative rule.” When the legislature gets involved and passes a law on a conservation issue, it makes it “virtually impossible to change it back,” Behnke said.

“I know lawmakers think they are making some lobbyists and voters happy, but it’s not the way to go,” Behnke said.

Legislation by administrative rule is in fact one of the worst features of Wisconsin government. When the Legislature passes a law, like it or not, a majority of the voters are represented, and when the voters decide they are no longer being adequately represented, legislators are involuntarily retired. (See Nov. 2, 2010.) No one in this state has voted for anyone to serve on the Natural Resources Board, and no one in this state who doesn’t work for the DNR has ever authorized the hiring of anyone in the DNR. For that matter, no non-legislator has ever approved of the state’s spending $86 million per year to take land permanently off the tax rolls in the name of conservation, either.

This is one of those cases that proves the political principle of expediency — the correct level of government to solve a problem is whatever level of government will solve the problem in your preferred way. I have yet to read an environmentalist suggest electing the Natural Resources Board, or an every-other-year statewide authorization referendum on the Knowles–Nelson Stewardship Fund-financed state land grab.

Smith decries politics in the environment:

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is crumbling; Wisconsin has been negligent in finding a solution for the future. It will require political involvement.

But items such as deer hunting regulations are best left to the DNR and NRB.

Politicians look after their own interests, principally re-election. That’s the way the system works.

But the resource is better served when objective, well-informed people apart from the political process look after it.

In other words, pay up, you ignorant taxpayer, and shut up.

I don’t expect an outdoors writer to admit this, but conservation and the environment is one of many, many issues we entrust to our elected officials. It is important — for one thing, tourism and agriculture are two of the state’s biggest industries — but it is not the most important. It is, for instance, difficult to drive to some part of the 16 percent of land in this state that is owned by a unit of government if you don’t have a job. It’s hard to spend money on fishing or hunting equipment if you don’t have money for outdoors equipment because your state has trailed the nation in per capita income growth for more than three decades.

The Ripon Commonwealth Press performed a valuable act of public service last week by interviewing state Rep. Fred Clark (D–Baraboo), who wants to defeat Sen. Luther Olsen (R–Ripon) in the 14th Senate District recall election sometime this summer, when Clark stopped by the newspaper office.

Before we continue, two points you’ve read here. First: No elected official should be recalled from office for one vote. Recalls should be meant for elective officials’ misconduct in public office, such as, oh, bugging out of the state to prevent a vote they’re going to lose. Second: Olsen is going to win the recall election for several reasons because, for one thing, he’s never faced a Democrat, which means that no Democrat between 1994 and 2008 felt they could defeat Olsen.

The headline starts things off: “Clark: Philosophical differences mark distinctions between himself and Olsen,” which could also read: “Philosophical differences mark distinctions between Clark and Olsen’s Senate district.”

Red Fred’s website claims that his being “a contractor and small business owner, and rural farm resident, serves him well as a representative to a rural area.” I wonder how often he’ll mention in the truncated campaign that he used to work for the Department of Natural Resources, which is not exactly popular for more reasons than I have time to list in this “rural area.” Maybe Clark’s definition of “rural Wisconsin’s progressive tradition” (hence my “Red Fred” reference) works in the Baraboo and Wisconsin Dells areas; it is unlikely to go over as well in the rest of the 14th Senate District, a majority of whose voters do not see government as the be-all and end-all of their lives.

The people who do see government as the be-all and end-all of their lives — and Baraboo is just 40 miles away from the People’s Republic of Madison — would include Clark’s endorsers in his 2010 reelection, a list that includes AFSCME, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, the Clean Wisconsin Action Fund, the National Association of Social Workers, the Wisconsin Laborer’s District Council, the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, Wisconsin Progress, the Wisconsin State AFL–CIO — organizations that do not represent the mainstream of 14th Senate District thought, based on past election results.

Clark asserts that “Sen. Olsen did not represent his district,” without giving any evidence that Olsen did, other than, one assumes, assertions from Clark’s buddies from AFSCME, the AFL–CIO and teacher unions. “He failed to do that on one of the most important issues a lot of people have seen in a generation,” as if public employee collective bargaining rights (which he calls a “fundamental human right,” irrespective of that right appearing nowhere in the U.S. or Wisconsin constitutions) are more important than the state’s Lake Michigan-size vat of red ink.

What would be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic is that Clark appears to have no better answers for the state’s godawful finances. Consider:
• “We have a structural deficit; we have to address that. We can’t tax our way out of it; we do need to make cuts.”
• “I do not disagree that many public employee unions had bargained for benefit packages that were unaffordable.”
• “I firmly believe that everything should be on the table. … I always believed that we need to be doing something to lower costs of benefits. Did we need to require [public employees] to contribute more to health care benefits? Yes.”
• “I’m not a proponent of raising anybody’s taxes, but a lot of people aren’t [paying what they are supposed to be paying]. We should fund the Department of Revenue more to have more examiners.”
• “The change I talk about is not getting us there; it doesn’t get even get us halfway” to the $2.5 billion budget deficit.
• “We’ve made more commitments … than we can really support. … We need to ask the public — how much do you want to invest to” keep those commitments.

The summary of these quotes is that Clark didn’t like what Olsen voted for, but Clark doesn’t have better answers than what Olsen voted for and Clark voted against. Clark’s union buddies believe the solution to our fiscal disaster area is to raise taxes, which Clark eschews if you believe the Commonwealth Press story.

The last time Clark’s party controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion, the Legislature increased taxes by $2.1 billion, yet managed the novel feat of significantly worsening state finances. The last complete fiscal year Democrats were in charge in Madison left us with a $2.9 billion deficit as correctly measured by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and a structural deficit of more than that heading into the 2011-13 state budget cycle.

Clark the entrepreneur has the following to say about the state’s business climate, which was made significantly worse in the years his party controlled the governor’s mansion:
• “We need to set up a tax environment where small businesses can survive and thrive. We need to balance a growing economy and the environmental value of our … lands. We should should have an economy that can grow and protect our resources at the same time.”
• “At the end of the day, the way we want to grow our state … is we need to grow the tax base. I don’t think cutting government to the bone is the way to do that. Creating an environment where businesses can thrive” will.

Clark’s assertion about the economy and the environment is made about a state that has spent billions of dollars and is spending $86 million a year to buy land and take it off the tax rolls in the guise of preservation, and a state where its environmental agency, Clark’s former employer, earned the nickname “Damn Near Russia” decades ago. (I wonder how voters in the “rural area” think about that.) And this is a state where agriculture and tourism, two obviously environment-dependent industries, dwarf every other industry. If anything, in Wisconsin the teeter-totter between the economy and the environment has giant weights on the environment’s seat.

Clark’s assertion about “cutting government to the bone” — which is a straw man since those elected Nov. 2 aren’t anywhere close to “cutting government to the bone” — is an accusation in a state with the fourth highest state and local taxes in the nation. That ranking also occurred under the Democrats’ watch.

Olsen — who ironically has been criticized for being not conservative enough, as demonstrated by his past opposition to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and concealed-carry legislation — is being punished for being an adult and making the financially responsible vote his opponent’s party failed to do when it controlled the Legislature. For that and other reasons, voters fired Democrats left and, well, left Nov. 2.