2023: The Year in Recombobulation
2023: The Year in Recombobulation
Our annual look back.
The Recombobulation Area is a ten-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written, edited and published by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
The year is coming to an end, folks. And what a year it was!
This is newsletter No. 125 for us this year, by far our most yet. Before we flip the calendar to 2024 — and all that it brings (hoo boy, buckle up) — let’s take a look back at what made up those 125 columns, articles, podcasts, videos, and in-depth stories this year.
But first, one more reminder. We are powered by our readers. This publication gets almost all of its funding from our wonderful, loyal subscribers. That’s right, we are supported by YOU.
This was my first full year making this a full-time operation, and in 2023, we reached more readers than ever, won more Milwaukee Press Club awards than ever, and added more new subscribers than ever. You better believe we’re pretty proud of that — and we want to keep this momentum going into a year that is certain to give us a whole lot to write about.
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OK, onto our annual look back at the year that was!
The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court
Perhaps the biggest story of the year in the state of Wisconsin happened in the Spring Election, when Janet Protasiewicz won the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, flipping the balance to a liberal majority.
Protasiewicz’s whopping 10-point victory over former justice Daniel Kelly — who now has the rare distinction of losing a statewide race in Wisconsin by a double-digit margin twice — was a seismic moment in state politics.
We had a lot to say about this race and what has come of it since. Out first piece of the year, a look ahead to 2023, keyed on this race as one of the biggest things to watch in state politics, and our second was a report on a candidate forum with then-candidates Jennifer Dorow, Daniel Kelly, Everett Mitchell and Janet Protasiewicz.
I took a look at the state of the race before the primary, live-blogged primary night, recombobulated on those primary results, wrote about the threat to democracy posed by Daniel Kelly, podcasted about the race, previewed election night, did a whole lot more all over social media, and wrote a column about the triumphantly tremendous results.
Amid all of that, I wrote an in-depth feature story on gerrymandering in Wisconsin and how this election brought a unique opportunity to change this fundamental wrong in the state. It turned out to be our most-read piece of the year.
This piece reached a wide audience and was promoted by the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus,
, Mark Ruffalo, Bradley Whitford — and many more.
That was all pretty darn fun, of course, but I’m also really proud of the piece. This is an issue I care deeply about, and because of that, have been looking ahead to this election for some time as a potential remedy to the unjust stranglehold that these tremendously gerrymandered maps have brought upon our wonderful state. I hope that these words had some kind of an impact on how people saw that issue and how connected it is to this race — and to all of state politics.
You can read the piece here.
The shared revenue and local sales tax debate
When I started The Recombobulation Area in 2019, one of the first columns I wrote was about the looming crisis facing Milwaukee County, and the need to raise a local option sales tax to help address this problem that had the potential to threaten the very future of Milwaukee and its local government.
So, last year, when Gov. Tony Evers made addressing the state’s broken shared revenue system a top priority for his second term, we took notice. As the year unfolded, The Recombobulation Area provided coverage of this proposal, the local sales tax for Milwaukee, and all of the other ins and outs of the bill like no one else in the state.
I wrote a few columns about this, of course, but we also worked closely with Marquette professor Philip Rocco to provide detailed, in-depth analysis of this bill and how it fundamentally reshapes the relationships between state and local government in Wisconsin.
Rocco’s coverage was essential to understanding what was being proposed. Look back on all of his coverage at the special page we’ve built here.
And read a few columns right here.
Here are a few of my columns on the issue, too.
To wrap the year, I sat down for an extended interview with Mayor Cavalier Johnson and David Crowley, and the top topic we reflected on was that shared revenue and local sales tax deal — Act 12.
You can watch that interview and listen to it as a podcast here.
…and that should just about close the loop on our coverage of this tremendously important issue, with Milwaukee looking ahead to a much brighter future.
One of the things I’ve been doing a whole lot more of this year is radio. I now am a regular guest on “As Goes Wisconsin” with Kristin Brey (and Jane Matenaer) on Civic Media, “WTMJ N.O.W.” with Steve Scaffidi on 620 WTMJ, and “Driving it Home” with Patti Vasquez on WCPT 820 and Heartland Signal in Chicago. I’ve also been a guest host several times on WTMJ Nights.
That wasn’t the only time The Recombobulation Area was into some audio this year. We also produced the “Bird on a Wire” podcast series with LuAnn Bird, recent candidate for State Assembly.
You can listen to that 10-episode series in full on The Recombobulation Area. Here are a few episodes.
Along with the aforementioned terrific contributions here from Phil Rocco, several others also wrote guest columns and contributed pieces for The Recombobulation Area, as well.
Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC), has been a regular contributor — and always has terrific insight to share with our readers. Read a few of here excellent pieces here.
Along with Lang’s terrific work, we also published guest columns from Kyle Johnson of BLOC, child care provider and co-founder of WECAN (Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed) Corrine Hendrickson, Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good, Carlene Bechen of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, political consultant and fair maps advocate Sachin Chheda, and Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski.
And over on Instagram, Isaac Rowlett regularly shared with us a Milwaukee Photo of the Week!
Another topic that became a big one in state government this year in Wisconsin that we weighed in on here was the topic of child care. Wisconsin Republicans voted a child care proposal out of the budget in a hearing held at 2:30 a.m., and then refused to fund child care in a September special session.
Here’s some of our coverage of the issue.
I also wrote about who wasn’t there for that September special session on child care, which is now one of our most-read stories of the year.
Another topic we covered a great deal was the proposal to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades and renovations at American Family Field, to keep the Brewers in Milwaukee for decades to come.
Here’s some of our coverage of that issue.
We also continued to cover important issues relating to transportation and infrastructure in Milwaukee. Perhaps the biggest of this was the launch of the region’s first Bus Rapid Transit line, a topic on which I wrote an in depth feature story.
We also wrote about one of the most talked-about topics of the year, the potential to tear down 794 in Downtown Milwaukee.
Next year, Milwaukee will host the RNC (gulp). And I got a taste of by covering the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee.
WHEW, that’s a lot of recombobulation.
None of this would have been possible without the support we get from all of you, so thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
One last plug: Subscribe to The Recombobulation Area. The more of you who pay to subscribe, the more local, independent journalism we can produce in 2024.
See you next year!
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 17 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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