Wisconsin at a Glance State Profile - Gov. Thompson (R) - Sen. Kohl (D) - Sen. Feingold (D) Presidential Politics Congressional Districting - 01 - Ryan (R) - 02 - Baldwin (D) - 03 - Kind (D) - 04 - Kleczka (D) - 05 - Barrett (D) - 06 - Petri (R) - 07 - Obey (D) - 08 - Green (R) - 09 - Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Almanac 2000 Home States & Districts Elected Officials For district profiles and additional information on the elected officials of Wisconsin, please use the pull-down menu above.

On the rolling land of western Wisconsin, in the knobby hills just east of the Mississippi River, is some of the most beautiful river landscape in the country. This is where Laura Ingalls Wilder's family built the ''little house in the big woods'' in the 1870s, before the first railroad came steaming up the narrow floodplain alongside the Mississippi River. Today, it is hard to imagine the big woods: The trees have long since been cut and the hillsides are covered with grass grazed by placid dairy cattle. Where pioneers tried to scratch out diversified crops, farmers soon created America's premier dairy region, producing milk, butter and especially cheese. Today the dairy industry is in trouble. Cows are more productive, while demand for milk has decreased because there are fewer children in America now than in the 1950s, and fewer Americans are descended exclusively from the northern European stock that carries the genes for the enzymes adults need to effectively digest milk. And Wisconsin has trouble competing against the European Common Market's hugely subsidized cheese and butter. In the 1980s many communities here lost population, but in the 1990s there has been slow but steady growth--a result perhaps of a decreasing tax burden and disappearing welfare rolls--which has been more rapid in the northern counties within commuting distance of Minneapolis-St. Paul; unemployment is at a record low.

The 3d Congressional District follows the Mississippi and St. Croix River counties from the southern border of the state almost to Lake Superior, and here and there reaches east a county or two. This is probably the nation's number one dairy district, with more cows than people. It was settled largely by German and Scandinavian immigrants (Laura's Yankee family moved away as Swedes were moving into the area), and it once voted for LaFollette Progressives. More recently, it has been fairly closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.

The congressman from the 3d District is Ron Kind, a Democrat elected in 1996. He grew up in a large family in La Crosse, the son of a telephone repairman and a secretary. He went to Harvard on scholarship and played quarterback, and worked as a summer intern for Senator William Proxmire, doing research for his Golden Fleece awards. He attended the London School of Economics and University of Minnesota Law School, practiced law in a big firm in Milwaukee, then returned home to La Crosse to work as an assistant prosecutor on rape and sexual abuse cases.

Kind started running for Congress soon after Congressman Steve Gunderson announced during the 1994 campaign that he would not run again in 1996. Gunderson was known nationally as the Republican revealed to be gay in an October 1994 New York Times Magazine article; in the district he was known as a hard-working young politician, first elected at 29 in 1980, who was the top Republican on the Agriculture subcommittee handling dairy programs. Early in the race to succeed him was Republican former state Senator Jim Harsdorf, from the northern part of the district up near Minneapolis-St. Paul. Kind was one of five Democrats running. He set a tone for the primary election by renting the Hollywood Theater in La Crosse for a special showing of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Kind's leading opponent, Lee Rasch, president of a La Crosse technical college, had run before and called for farmers to wean themselves from federal price supports. Kind talked of cutting corporate welfare and aiding the poor, and won the September primary 46%-29%.

There was much commotion on the Republican side. Gunderson was third-ranking Republican on Agriculture; Chairman Pat Roberts was running for the Senate, and in June 1996 second-ranking Republican Bill Emerson died. That put Gunderson in line for the chairmanship, and many Wisconsin dairy people urged him to run for re-election. He said in June that he would only if he had no primary opponent, but Harsdorf refused to leave the race, and Gunderson did not file. In July a Gunderson write-in movement was launched. In late July Newt Gingrich called Gunderson and told him that conservative activist (and Wisconsin native) Paul Weyrich was planning an independent expenditure effort against him and that four of the five other Wisconsin Republicans were against the write-in. On July 31 in Eau Claire, Gunderson asked the write-in organizers ''to not go forward'' and added, ''It has been explained to me bluntly that if you, as an openly gay person, became chairman of the Agriculture Committee, you would legitimatize homosexuality.''

In the general election, Harsdorf took hard-edged, well-defined stands, for the balanced budget and Governor Tommy Thompson's ''Wisconsin Works'' welfare reform (known as W-2). Kind complained the ads were misleading and called for an end to such campaigning, though the ads accurately set out the candidates' differences on two important issues: Kind said he was concerned whether W-2 provided enough job training and child care and wanted to see how Congress tackled the budget in 1997 before considering an amendment. He talked instead of campaign finance reform and presented his own balanced budget proposal. On November 1 Gunderson announced he was neutral on the candidates because he didn't agree with Harsdorf's views on civil and human rights and thought him too close to the Christian Coalition. In a district that Bill Clinton carried 50%-34%, Kind won 52%-48%. Harsdorf won over some Clinton voters in his northwest base and in southern Grant County, but Kind ran 8% ahead of Clinton in his base of La Crosse and 6% ahead in Eau Claire.

In the House, Kind joined the New Democrat Coalition and compiled a moderate record on economics and cultural issues, and a more liberal one on foreign and defense issues. He did not get a seat on the Agriculture Committee, but stayed in touch with Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and with Gunderson on dairy issues. Like other Wisconsin members, he wants to reform the Federal Milk Marketing Order System, instituted in 1937, which pays higher prices the farther the farmer is from Eau Claire, Wisconsin; he opposed the Northeast Dairy Compact, which was set up under the 1996 farm bill to allow New England and Upstate New York to set prices for their products; he was wary of the move of the National Cheese Exchange from Green Bay to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and argued that the basic price formula for cheese is not accurately determined by the market. He opposed delays in the end date of the Northeast Dairy Compact and predicted there might be new compacts in the Southeast and California under current policy. In June 1997 the president of the Upper Midwest Milk Producers said, ''Ron doesn't have any pull anywhere, but he seems to understand what's going on. He just doesn't have the power to do anything.'' Kind said he was ''disappointed'' with the milk marketing system Glickman proposed in April 1999, which produced tiny price increases for Wisconsin but didn't level the national playing field.

Kind is founder and co-chair of the Upper Mississippi River Congressional Task Force. He worked on the bipartisan task force on campaign finance, and made speeches for campaign finance changes on 98 consecutive days in 1997, in imitation of Proxmire's daily speeches urging ratification of the genocide treaty (it finally was ratified in 1986, his 30th year in the Senate). After strong lobbying by union leaders and dairy interests, he opposed fast track in October 1997, even declining an invitation to play golf with President Clinton for fear he'd be lobbied. He was not a sycophantic follower of White House talking points during the Clinton scandals. When Clinton made his first trip out of Washington after the Lewinsky scandal broke to La Crosse, Kind said, ''Obviously, it's going to cast a shadow on what he's doing. Everything he does now is going to be seen within that context.'' Kind was one of 31 Democrats in October 1998 to vote for the Republicans' impeachment inquiry, but he later voted against all four counts of impeachment. He sponsored a bill to relax the English language requirement for citizenship for Hmong immigrants, some of whom fought for the United States in Vietnam and would lose their welfare benefits under the 1996 Immigration Act.

Kind tends to strike a positive tone. ''There's a lot of cynicism about politics, but I see a lot of positive things get done,'' he says, and points out that civility is greater now than in the 19th Century when members of Congress beat each other on the floor and fought duels. After a tumultuous and heavily contested campaign in 1996, Kind had opposition in 1998 only from a Republican who spent $7,500 on the race. Kind won 72%-28%. He could conceivably be a candidate for statewide office some year.

Cook's Call:
Probably Safe. Though only a sophomore, Kind has established himself pretty well in this Democratic leaning district. Republicans were unable to find a top-tier challenger in 1998 to take on Kind; his subsequent drubbing of the opponent may be enough to scare off other high caliber Republicans in 2000.

The People:

• Pop. 1990: 543,447
• 55.9% rural; 14.6% age 65+;
• 97.9% White, 0.3% Black, 1.2% Asian, 0.5% Amer. Indian, 0.4% Hispanic origin; 0.1% Other.
• Households: 59.3% married couple families; 29.6% married couple fams. w. children; 39.4% college educ.; median household income: $25,758; per capita income: $11,505; median gross rent: $267; median house value: $52,600.

1996 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 120,717 (50%) Dole (R) 82,678 (34%) Perot (I) 33,325 (14%)

1992 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 119,721 (43%) Bush (R) 90,813 (33%) Perot (I) 67,134 (24%)