Skip to main content

William Proxmire: 1915-2005

Falling on the same day that fellow Democrat and former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala was sentenced in Madison to jail time for misconduct in office, Proxmire’s death comes as another signal of a shift in state politics, from populist barnstorming to pricey TV ads paid for by influential big-money interests, said Dennis Dresang, a political science professor at UW-Madison.