The Assembly’s passage of the Livestock Siting Bill symbolizes Wisconsin’s ailing democracy as the bill’s opponents demonstrate how to heal it.
Finding a cure
By
Andrew C. Hanson and Felicia Lin
“The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”--Edward Abbey
With the presidential election primary season ended, perhaps it is time we start taking a closer look at the state of our own democracy here in Wisconsin. And what better example to use than the Livestock Siting Bill, an environmentally harmful and divisive attempt by industrial agriculture lobbyists to severely limit local government authority to reject plans for a factory farm?
The Livestock Siting Bill, or AB 868, is racing through the legislative system on greased skids pushed by many of the state’s factory farmers and lobbyists. The Assembly has already voted to pass it.
If politicians practiced truth in labeling, they would call this bill the “Undermine Local Democracy Act.” The law would weaken local regulation of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) by placing limits on the zoning regulations governments can apply to new and expanding CAFOs.
This comes on the heels of two investigations the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recently initiated over two major manure spills from livestock factories at opposite sides of the state in Jackson County and Kewaunee County. One marvels at why state legislators would press for a bill that would make it easier to site livestock factories given the environmental catastrophes they seem to create every spring in Wisconsin.
As is to be expected, the Livestock Siting Bill is outraging people who believe they are capable of making the decisions that affect their daily lives. At the legislative hearing on the bill last month, 80 people showed up to speak in opposition. They were mostly rural residents and family farmers, and many of them had traveled since the early hours of the morning. They came armed with signs and speeches, but most importantly they came with their own personal stories describing the nightmare of living next to livestock factories.
For many citizens, this was their first exposure to the legislative process and they were expecting to see democracy at work. Instead, the grassroots citizens began noticing things here in Madison that perhaps the “locals” have unfortunately come to expect. They watched each other’s testimony get cutoff by biased questions from legislators while factory farmers and their lobbyists were given extra time to testify. Many citizens were disenchanted by the very system they were fighting to protect.
And what a “system” it has become. Proponents of the bill boast that 104 people came out to support the bill, but approximately 45 of the bill’s 104 supporters were paid lobbyists, paid staff of lobbying organizations, and people who owned livestock factories or otherwise stood to gain financially from the bill’s passage.
On the other hand, the 80 grassroots citizens opposing the bill have little, if any, financial interest in the bill. Their concerns are rooted in a basic need for clean air and water, safe homes, and a desire for self-governance. Rather than being paid to voice their opposition, many of them had to take time off from work in order to attend the mid-day hearing.
The Livestock Siting Bill and the hearing for it are symptomatic of Wisconsin’s ailing democracy. The cure for this malady does not involve ignoring local concerns, trivializing grassroots activism or disenfranchising those who have the nerve to disagree with the special interests clogging the arteries of the state Capitol.
Instead, the hearing on Livestock Siting Bill showed us that the cure for Wisconsin’s diseased democracy is more democracy. If 80 people could unnerve agribusiness lobbyists and legislators by forcing them to pull out all the stops at a hearing, imagine what thousands could do.
And the 80 people that showed up to oppose limits on local permitting of factory farms are not a handful of activists. They are the beginning of a movement that is already igniting the spark of democratic ideals and fueling Wisconsin’s tradition of grassroots democracy. This movement grows in each and every one of us, reconnecting people to the land and to each other.
It is time for the people of Wisconsin to remind their legislators of the democratic principles the state was founded on. The only cure for our ailing democracy is to use it.
March 8, 2004
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Andrew C. Hanson and Felicia Lin are a staff attorney and community organizer, respectively, for Midwest Environmental Advocates, Inc., in Madison.
