By Milwaukee Courier Staff
Chris Larson
Upon announcing his campaign for Milwaukee County Executive, State Sen. Chris Larson released a list of promises that he called his “Clean Campaign Pledge”. The three key parts of his pledge were ‘saying no to outside groups’, ‘rejecting corporate influence’, and ‘running a positive campaign.’
Now, less than two weeks before the General Election in which Larson faces off against State Rep. David Crowley, chair of Wisconsin’s Black Caucus, Larson has broken all three planks of his own pledge.
This week, an outside dark money group sent out a slick mail piece on behalf of Chris Larson.
In response, did Larson disavow this ‘dark money’ spending by an outside group like he promised?
Nope, instead, Larson went on the attack against Crowley to try and distract everyone. Unfortunately, this is how Larson operates. Larson throws mud at Crowley, violating his own pledge to run a positive campaign, then claims he is running a positive campaign.
In his attacks, Larson also tried to say that Crowley is beholden to special interests. In reality, Larson has accepted thousands of dollars from an out of state billionaire who made their money off of oil and gas drilling. Crowley has not received any similar donations.
Larson pledged to ‘reject corporate influence’, but we have seen throughout Larson’s legislative career that he has accepted nearly $50,000 in contributions from Corporate PACs, including from big banks, big telecom, and tobacco companies.
Unfortunately, this is the Larson that our community has seen before. The Larson that fought with State Sen. Lena Taylor, insulted her publicly and stripped her of her seat on the powerful Wisconsin Legislative Joint Finance Committee, removing the only member from Milwaukee from this critical state funding body.
Larson likes to publicly make promises, then go behind everyone’s back and do whatever he wants because at the end of the day, Larson believes that the rules just don’t apply to him.
The election for the Milwaukee County Executive is critical for the future of our community. This is a historic opportunity to elect the first African American County Executive into this powerful office that so much of our community relies on.
This is also an unprecedented election because of the crisis caused by the coronavirus. The ‘Safer at Home’ order that we are all under means that this will not be a normal election.
Every voter needs to order an absentee ballot so you can vote from home. There is no guarantee that polls will be open on election day, so do not wait. Order an absentee ballot at myvote.wi.gov and make sure your voice and our voice, is heard.
Do it today. Our very futures may depend on it.
