Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s call to halt the search for the next Universities of Wisconsin president until a new governor and Legislature take office is not merely misguided. It reflects a troubling notion that government should stop working whenever election winds blow.
Thompson and former UW system administrator James Langdon asked the Regents to pause the search until after the governor and legislators are sworn in on Jan. 4.
“While these state officers do not have formal roles in the selection of the System President, they will have opinions on policy priorities, and the System and its relationship with the Executive Office and Legislature,” the authors wrote in the letter, obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.
The Board of Regents is not a temporary body, meant to work only at certain times in an election year. It is the legally constituted governing authority of the Universities of Wisconsin system. Its members are appointed through established processes and entrusted with making decisions for one of Wisconsin’s most important institutions. Selecting a university president is not some peripheral task. It is precisely why the Regents exist. Suggesting they pull back from their duties now is simply not reasonable.
If every major decision were deferred whenever an election loomed, government would grind to a halt. Public institutions would be left in limbo as elected officials and governing boards stood frozen, awaiting the next electoral verdict. That is not how the UW System was designed to function.
Thompson and others argue that because Governor Tony Evers is not seeking reelection and because future political leadership may look different in January, today’s Regents should suspend their responsibilities. Good Lord, the Regents’ authority does not expire because campaign signs are appearing in yards from Superior to Janesville. The Regents should not be asked to function only when everyone can perfectly predict who will hold office six months from now.
As I read Thompson’s letter, I was struck by how much his idea resembled the argument some Republicans used to say the U.S. Senate should refuse to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, insisting voters should first weigh in at the next election. That logic was flawed then and Thompson’s is flawed now. Call me old-fashioned, but today’s leaders are expected to govern today.
Delaying the search would send exactly the wrong message about the UW-System. It would suggest that political calculations matter more than institutional continuity. It would tell candidates, faculty, students, and taxpayers that Wisconsin’s higher education system is willing to put important business on hold to assess partisan requirements. The Regents should not put themselves in that equation.
The voters will choose a new governor, and the state legislature will take office when the time comes. If those officials wish to chart a different course for the Universities of Wisconsin, they will have opportunities to do so through the powers granted to them. But until then, the Wisconsin government must work. The Regents have a job to do. They should do it.
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