By Four Lakes Group member Liz Wessel
When you get to know a candidate like Kriss Marion, knocking on doors or making calls or sending personal postcards to voters in a District just seems like the right thing to do! So when the Four Lakes Group decided to focus on Senate District 17 (SD17), we got to work trying to engage members both within and outside SD17 which covers the southwestern corner of the state.
The Chapter endorsed Kriss Marion - Lafayette County board member, organic vegetable farmer, bed and breakfast operator. She cares deeply about southwestern Wisconsin, the health and welfare of its people and the health of the natural resources and promoted herself as a changemaker. And the more we got to know her and those who campaigned with her, the more excited we were to be a part of the effort.
We developed a plan that included regular emails, personalized postcards, canvassing, letters to the editor and election postcards with all the candidates. We wanted to tap into activists in the Dane Co area that might help with this campaign. We organized postcard evenings where volunteers colored, addressed and personalized a postcard to every Sierra Club member in SD17. We had just over 20 people attend 2 evenings and had multiple generations participate. One of my favorites was a voting booth with people waiting to vote and an “I voted” emblem on the front.
Some of us also went to the District to do doors and drop literature for Kriss Marion. It's probably not a favorite activity for a lot of people because it's outside of their comfort zone, but I found myself surprised by how I felt. Talking about Kriss Marion to voters especially undecided ones felt really good and went surprisingly well! The Chapter Water team worked with local letter writers to generate letters to the editor. We discovered that active postcard/letter to the editor teams existed across the District so we lent our support to these teams.
I spent a morning in the campaign headquarters in Dodgeville meeting a lot of the local volunteers. One of the lead volunteers asked if I knew about the Sierra Club candidate postcard that had been sent. She was carrying it around in her bag and showing people. She was excited that the Sierra Club was engaged in the campaign. I was proud to say that I was a part of that effort to get Sierrans out to the polls for Kriss and the 3 Assemble candidates in SD17.
We did not win the race in SD17 but we did meet a lot of people and members who care about southwestern WI and its rich variety of natural resources. At one point I did an inventory of the state parks. This region includes at least 6 state parks including Wyalusing along the Mississippi River and one of my favorites Governor Dodge State park. It includes some well used state trails, wildlife and recreation areas and some of the state’s best fly fishing.
The Four Lakes Group effort will evolve in 2019. There are local elections to look at, support for a local water workshop and a day to highlight the plight of our state parks as state lawmakers slashed operating money. We will continue to develop strong relationships with activists and members in SD 17.
Our long term goal is to build a foundation for change and for conservation and sustainable practices by working at the local level. Where local Sierrans and supporters provide the direction and the greater Group provides the support. After observing the urban rural split in the vote in 2016, the gerrymandered districts of WI, and state led policies preventing reasonable and needed safeguards for drinking water, recreational resources and wetlands, we know we need to step out of our comfort zone.
The Four Lakes Group is the local Sierra Club group covering Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Lafayette, Rock and Sauk Counties. See the Sierra Club Four Lakes Group website for information about ways to get involved: https://www.sierraclub.org/wisconsin/four-lakes