Jim Sensenbrenner represents Wisconsin’s Fifth District. Originally elected in 1978, he will be seeking his 16th term next year. You could hardly find a more ensconced representative.
Sensenbrenner, who chaired the House Judiciary Committee prior to the Democratic takeover of the House after the 2006 elections, has won every general election since his first House bid in 1978 with at least 60 percent of the vote. He received 62 percent in the tough Republican year of 2006 to 36 percent for little-known Democratic opponent Bryan Kennedy.
Sensenbrenner has a lot of seniority. While most GOP congresspeople serve on only one committee, Sensenbrenner serves on three. He is the ranking member on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the second ranking member on both the Judiciary, and Science and Technology committees. He’s is probably most famous for his role as one of the House Managers that prosecuted Bill Clinton in the Senate during his impeachment trial.
The fifth district, which lies north of Milwaukee, is very Republican. But Sensenbrenner’s special brand of wingnuttery has inspired something highly unusual.
…Sensenbrenner, in the 2008 campaign, is being double-teamed by Republican Jim Burkee and Democrat Jeff Walz, friends and teaching colleagues at the district’s Concordia University — who are staging a rare tandem challenge to the incumbent.
Burkee plans to run against Sensenbrenner in the September 2008 Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, while Walz seeks to claim the usually uncoveted Democratic nomination in a place where 63 percent of the voters favored re-electing George W. Bush as president in 2004.
Burkee and Walz have gone so far as to create a joint campaign website. And they have some other unique strategies.
“Jeff and I are friends,” said Burkee, a history professor. “He’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican, and we disagree on a lot in terms of how we get things done. But we generally agree that it is outrageous that on a whole range of issues nothing has gotten done.”
The candidates point to energy and immigration, along with fiscal policy and the expanding deficit, as issues that should have been dealt with by Congress. Several areas of agreement will be codified in a pact the candidates will sign a week after they officially launch their campaigns. Among their agreements: no personal attacks, no money from political action committees, no gifts from lobbyists and a self-imposed limit of three two-year terms in the House…
Although only one of them can be elected to Congress, Burkee and Walz discuss their joint campaign in terms of what would happen if “we” win. They said they would continue teaching at Concordia as they served the district’s constituents, bringing back the idea of citizen legislators instead of career politicians.
So far they have not contacted their state parties or the national party campaign committees, and they’ve said they do not intend to. Walz, a professor of political science at Concordia, described the campaign as a collaboratively run grass-roots effort they hope to keep “outside of party support and outside of the party apparatus.”
They are making up joint advertising, joint buttons and yard signs, and they plan to tour the district doing a series of Lincoln-Douglas inspired debates.
It’s gimmicky, but it could possibly catch on. If I were Chris Van Hollen at the DCCC, I’d respect Walz’s desire to remain independent. And I’d field another candidate to join the two professors on their debating tour. With three candidates out discussing the nation’s problems and Sensenbrenner’s inadequacies, they might actually put enough of a hurt on Big Jim that he can be taken out.
You never know.
