“Absolute power is a dangerous thing,” he says. “When it’s always a win-lose situation and one side’s always losing, you strip people of their dignity. They lose hope and they get angry. I think that’s what 125,000 people came down to Madison to tell us. They didn’t believe what was going on was fair.”

Schultz believes those who think independently or seek compromise are viewed as threats by the special interests, which finance campaigns with the expectation of dictating policy once their preferred candidates take office.

“I think increasingly legislation is coming to the legislature entirely pre-packaged,” says Schultz. “And anybody who wants to work on it, who wants to think about it, or wants to change it gets in trouble.”

Case in point: The mining bill.

“Over in the Assembly this bill arrives, nobody is the father of it until (the Republican leadership) all stood up and said, ‘I’m Spartacus,’” he chuckles.

“Silly us that thought we were going to have some opportunity to impact something,” he adds, referring to the alternative mining proposal he worked on with Sens. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville, and Bob Jauch, D-Poplar.

For what purpose do people even pursue elected office these days, he wonders.