As Washington settles in for more and more gridlock, and hyperpartisanship spreads out from the nation's capital to the heartland, threatening the historically more congenial environs of state legislatures, one group of veteran political operatives remain deeply committed to making the government serve the common good. State Catholic conferences across the nation work in all-red and all-blue states and in states with divided governments, seeking to bring often divergent groups together in pursuit of the common good.
John Huebscher has been working at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference for 27 years. The Badger State is now controlled entirely by Republicans, but the Wisconsin Catholic Conference agenda remains decidedly nonpartisan. The conference will be allied mostly with Democrats seeking Medicaid expansion in the state. In its efforts to expand a parental choice program that would help Catholic schools become more financially viable, the conference will be mostly allied with Republicans.
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