Endorsement: Evan Goyke for Milwaukee City Attorney
It's clear there needs to be a change at the City Attorney's office. Milwaukee is lucky that the person running to bring that change is Evan Goyke.
The Recombobulation Area is a ten-time THIRTEEN-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.
On the Spring Election ballot in Milwaukee, the most interesting race might be the one for the often-overlooked office of City Attorney.
Part of that is due to the nature of this year’s election, with top-of-the-ticket races for mayor and county executive not being competitive. Another part is due to the nature of the incumbent, Tearman Spencer, and the chaotic and scandal-riddled nature of his time in office. But the biggest part is because of just who the challenger is in this election and what he could bring to this office.
That candidate is Evan Goyke. The Recombobulation Area is endorsing Evan Goyke in the race for Milwaukee City Attorney.
Goyke is exactly the type of leader Milwaukee needs right now. He is a smart, passionate public servant who will go deep into the weeds on the details. He would bring a much-needed change to the City Attorney’s office, and do so with genuine creativity and true care for constituents. As Milwaukee continues to reinvent itself with new leadership, Goyke would be a tremendous choice to lead this important office.
As a representative serving in the State Assembly for more than a decade, Goyke has established himself as one of the state’s brightest emerging leaders. As a member of the Joint Finance Committee for several sessions, he has a unique understanding of both the bigger picture and the most arcane details of the political process in Wisconsin. Despite being a member of the minority party, he has worked across the aisle to achieve results. Through it all, Goyke does this while demonstrating that he’s guided by a north star of doing what’s best for his constituents, what’s best for Milwaukee.
“We have built a coalition that’s very diverse, across neighborhoods, across the political spectrum, with a positive message about what this office can do across the city of Milwaukee, and the response has been incredible,” Goyke said of his campaign, to The Recombobulation Area.
Late last year, I interviewed Goyke while guest hosting WTMJ Nights, and he said he wanted to “bring back world class legal representation for the city and the people of Milwaukee.” He also talked about the under-the-radar things that the City Attorney’s office can have an impact on — code enforcement, maintaining housing standards, managing all kinds of lawsuits that might come up, prosecuting reckless driving offenses in municipal court, etc. — being an office that is connected to every part of city government.
“The (Milwaukee City Attorney’s office) works with every agency and department and corner of city government,” said Goyke in that interview. “It really is part of the grease that makes the wheels and gears of city government move. We’ve seen in the last couple of years a little chaos and dysfunction in the office, a lot of turnover in experienced and qualified lawyers and we’ve seen the negative effects on city operations and city services when that happens.”
While the main reason to vote for Goyke is that he’s an exemplary public servant who would be a tremendous fit in this role, there’s also the other part of this equation — Tearman Spencer, who has been a disaster.
Since his victory in the 2020 spring election over prior incumbent Grant Langley, who served for more than three decades in the office, Spencer has seen a near constant churn of controversy.
From serious harassment allegations with female staffers (resulting in a recently-approved $77,000 settlement), to staggering turnover within the office (departures that amounted to losing “245 of institutional knowledge” per the JS), to an assistant city attorney going on pro-Putin Russian state media (a hire who also faced criticism after working for an anti-Muslim group) to accusations of a toxic work environment (particularly in treatment of women), to implementing a dress code for women that’s right out of the 1950’s (along with other strange office policies), to constant clashes with the Common Council to holding up major projects, to accusations of embezzlement, cash kickbacks, waste and fraud, ex-staffers urging the Common Council to oust Spencer, to his top deputy resigning amid allegations of corruption, prompting Milwaukee’s inspector general to recommend criminal charges against Spencer, to a state equal rights officer saying there’s “probable cause” that he violated state labor law, to Spencer intervening in a case surrounding where his collection of old cars are stored, to say his first term has been an ongoing disaster would be quite the understatement.
Perhaps that’s all why Goyke announced he’d be running for this office in December of 2022, just over halfway through Spencer’s first term. The need for change at that office was so clear, someone needed to step up.
But there are a lot of candidates who could have been the one to step up and run against Spencer. Milwaukee is lucky that the one running is Goyke.
On “day one,” he said, he would focus on “rebuilding the culture in the office” and “restoring trust with clients” as well as “restoring trust with the community and making sure the office is accessible and transparent and visible.” He added that he plans to get “down into the neighborhood level to understand what constituents are facing and what our office could help with.”
As Milwaukee continues to undergo a sea change of new leadership, Goyke says, “One of the reasons I was most excited to raise my hand and run at this moment is to be a part of that group of new leaders elected…I think we are going to be a very formidable team and really work well together.”
Goyke is uniquely suited for this role, as someone who understands the details and sees how the levers of government can work for people. He’s able to build coalitions to get things done. As a state representative on Milwaukee’s west side, he has been exceptionally responsive to constituents and knows how to work with members of the community.
Goyke is one of the good ones. He could have a transformational impact on this office, and on Milwaukee. We are thrilled to vote for him in the spring election on April 2.
Vote for Evan Goyke in the race for Milwaukee City Attorney.
The Recombobulation Area does not endorse candidates in every race, only in select races where we feel especially strongly about the candidate. This is one of those races.
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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