Our friend Matt Rothschild does his last column of an illustrious career.

MADISON - If you want to know why private schools are getting such an influx of your tax dollars, just follow the money.

As Mike Buelow, our research director, reported here, three of the biggest backers of vouchers have spent $67 million in our elections since 2010 to buy the politicians they need:

School Voucher Backers Win Big with Evers, GOP Agreement

The wealthy and the powerful also got their servants in the Republican legislature to give them a big tax break, as I noted here:

GOP Budget Rewards the Rich

The flattening of our income tax code and the siphoning off of public money for private schools would appall our progressive forebearers in Wisconsin, who, 100 years ago, fought so hard for progressive taxation and public education.

And they’d also be appalled at all the outside money that’s still contaminating our politics today.

As Fighting Bob La Follette, one of my heroes, once wrote: “Democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”

I know you’re a lover of democracy, as I am. And I know there are many people, one or two generations behind me, who are involved – creatively and energetically – in this struggle.

They give me hope.

And you give me hope.

And Law Forward gives me hope.

And Civic Media gives me hope.

And Justice-Elect Protasiewicz gives me hope.

Hope that we can make more real the ideals of representative democracy.

And so it is with optimism and gratitude – to you, to the amazing staff at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, to our board of directors, and to all of our supporters and all of our coalition partners – that I bid you adieu.

I’m retiring at the end of this week.

The search is under way, in earnest, for my successor, and I know there are several excellent candidates in that pool.

I have no doubt, whatsoever, that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign will flourish in the years ahead.

And I’ll be cheering it on – and you on -- from the sidelines.

Thank you for reading these emails from me.

Thank you for supporting the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

And most of all, thank you for doing your part in the struggle for our democracy.

Wishing you all the best in the years ahead!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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