While the board members were still political animals, they didn’t get specific marching orders from the Democrats or the Republicans.
Yes, John Lawton was a good Democrat, but he was a better trout fisherman. Bud Jordahl went back to the days of Gaylord Nelson, and loved the outdoors as much as Gaylord. Pete Helland was a friend of Warren Knowles and an appointee of Tommy Thompson’s, but he put the environment first.
DNR secretaries were remarkably insulated from politics, and the environment was the beneficiary.
It was Les Voigt’s son who played ball, not Les. Buzz Besadny was about as straight a shooter as the sniper who shot the pirate. George Meyer earned the respect of Wisconsin citizens by enforcing environmental laws — the anti-pollution and the fish-and-game laws — evenhandedly.
For three decades, I saw how hard the board members worked, and how much they cared.
How would the Chippewa spearfishing controversy have played out if the governor had been in charge of the DNR? Would a DNR secretary have been fired by the board for enforcing air pollution laws?
The public was well served by the limited political insulation that the law afforded the DNR, and afforded DNR employees and secretaries.
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