Connecting Concerned Citizens in Wisconsin: Chris Kliesmet and Orville Seymer
Businessman Chris Kliesmet and former ironworker Orville Seymer form an unlikely partnership—"We're like Mutt and Jeff," Chris says.
But despite their differences, they have united behind the Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) Network to make a difference in local politics in Wisconsin—and they know that people around the country can do the same to keep their local governments accountable.
In 2002, Milwaukee County bureaucrats meddled with the government employee pension plan to allow employees to retroactively collect retirement benefits if they'd worked past their retirement dates, to collect a bigger portion of their unused sick time at retirement—and to give several politicians million-dollar retirement payouts.
Chris, Orv, and other citizens responded by launching a recall campaign for the County Executive. After beginning to rally support, a small group of people met to strategize.
"That group of 13 people planned what was to become the largest recall in Wisconsin state history and the largest successful recall in U.S. History up to that point," Orv says.
They had 60 days to collect at least 73,000 signatures. At the end of 28 days, they had collected more than 182,000.
"They told us it was impossible, but we did it," Orv says.
After they turned in 19,000 pages of signatures in five large boxes, County Executive Tom Ament resigned. The group then turned their attention to other County Board members, seven of which they successfully removed from office.
After this wildly successful campaign, several groups across the state called to ask Chris and Orv for help and advice, leading them to start the CRG Network (Citizens for Responsible Government).
"We're only two fishermen here," Chris said. "We can't fish for everyone, but we can teach them how to fish…that's the strategy."
On their website, the CRG Network lists four goals: to educate citizens on how to successfully engage and manage their government; to motivate fiscal conservatives to vote in increasingly larger numbers; to organize fiscal conservatives into the most influential political force in Wisconsin, and to encourage fiscal conservatives to contribute the human and financial resources needed to grow and be successful.
CRG is already making a difference—when Milwaukee bureaucrats recently tried to mislead taxpayers into increasing county supervisor pay, CRG was there to set the record straight. In March, Milwaukee County Supervisor James Schmitt released a report from the County Personnel Committee, advocating a 40 percent pay increase for county supervisors, allegedly supported by an analysis from the County Department of Audit.
CRG did an open records request, performed their own audit from the information, and came to a startling discovery: Schmitt had left out a mountain of information to mislead taxpayers about supervisor compensation. The truth was that the total sum of all Milwaukee County supervisors' salaries was already nearly a million.
The good news is that CRG released their own audit report, generating lots of publicity and, ultimately, victory: when word got out, Schmitt backed down.
"Most people have little or no understanding of government budgets but they do relate very easily to how much a county supervisor makes and how much they make in their own job," Orv says. "When the county board starts to talk about a 40 percent increase in salary, it doesn’t take much to get people angry enough to pick up their phone and call their county supervisor."
"Elected officials continue to mislead the taxpaying public," Orv continues, "because they think that the public is not paying attention."
"They realize people are watching and maybe they ought to be more cautious," Chris adds.
Chris and Orv offer three simple tips to citizens who want to fight for responsible, accountable government in their own communities:
1) Gather information through Google searches, city council meeting notes, FOIA requests, and so on.
2) Distribute information with mailings, letters to the editor, citizen meetings, etc.
3) Take action by starting a recall campaign, introducing direct legislation, and more.
Bureaucrats, beware—thanks to CRG, the public is paying attention now.
Visit the CRG Network’s website to learn more.
