An Emerging Progressive Agenda?

News that statewide universal health care proposals are gaining strength in Wisconsin, while being hopeful developments on their own, are also indicators that a progressive approach to public policy in our state has a growing audience.

Elected officials and policy-makers could replicate the health care model to expand their advocacy for a broad, progressive agenda in Wisconsin - - using the health care issue because it is rooted in an effort to achieve a common good.

Promoting transit, for example, rather than the state's single-minded diversion of billions of public dollars into highway-building, is another such opportunity.

As is conserving land and water for public uses, rather than for sprawl development served by new highways paid for by our taxes.

And both connect to the push for a healthier populace because transit, land use preservation and conservation produce cleaner, healthier air and water resources, too.

Note how aggressively California is dealing with the health and environmental consequences of sprawl - - in a state run by a Republican.

And all these issues come into sharper focus as the population ages, the climate gets warmer, gasoline prices rise, and so on. The timing for coherent policy planning at all levels of government and the economy - - in the genuine public interest - - is oh, so right.

Democrats in Wisconsin are sometimes pursuing pieces of environmental opportunities, and the public's well-documented support for clean air, water and open space, such as Gov. Jim Doyle's praiseworthy expansion of the Stewardship Fund's open space purchases.

And the lack of a Democratic majority in the State Assembly is perhaps another roadblock to a more publicly-spirited state policy agenda.

But even Democrats shy away from a definitive, definable progressive agenda, fearing the wrath of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, or the powerful road-builders lobby, and other loud voices that demand private interests take priority over the public good.

That's why Milwaukee does not have modern rail transit, for instance, penalizing the city's economy, stifling its appeal to visitors and complicating access to jobs for workers.

Wisconsin's inability to endorse the Great Lakes Compact, a water conservation agreement with seven other states and two Canadian provinces, is another example.

Supporters of conservation and smarter land use planning want guarantees in the Compact legislation that conserving water will be at the heart of a Wisconsin bill - - to protect a vital Wisconsin and planetary resource.

Development interests and their allies in the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and the Republican caucus from Waukesha County, however, do not want to be part of a multi-state agreement that could restrict pipelines of Lake Michigan water to push sprawl west to the Jefferson County line.

So far, they are winning the argument by blocking a state legislative study committee from writing a strong, pro-Compact endorsement.

Democrats at the state level not used these issues to help their Milwaukee base - - the state's largest urban area: local Democrats, for the most part, have not tied the issues together with a coordinated political and media strategy, either.

It's a curious and disappointing dynamic.

But keep an eye on the health care coverage debate. It can go as far as folks want, and be used in a positive way for the good of the state, if there is the political will to do it.