Fred Clark enters race for 7th Congressional District

It’s been one week since Congressman Tom Tiffany announced his campaign for governor, and now the first Democrat has jumped into the race to take his place in Congress. 

Fred Clark is a former state lawmaker and former senior forester with the Department of Natural Resources, and an ecologist with The Nature Conservancy. He has also served on the Wisconsin Council on Forestry, the Tourism Council, and briefly on the Natural Resources Board.

In a campaign video, Clark emphasized the importance of bipartisanship.

“In my time as a forester, and a business owner, I worked with loggers, and land owners, and resource managers, and we always had one unspoken rule,” he said. “We just left the politics at the truck door.”

Clark previously served in the State Assembly, representing the Baraboo area. He won a Republican-held seat in 2008.

Appearing live on-air with Civic Media’s Pat Kreitlow, Clark said he spent his summer getting to know many parts of the 7th congressional district. 

“We went to Marshfield and to Wausau and Merrill and Tomahawk and Rhinelander and Hayward and Spooner and Webster and Hudson,” he said.

“We had a lot of conversations with a lot of people to figure out what concerns are sort of rising to the top for the communities around northern Wisconsin and what people are looking for out of representation.”

The 7th district stretches across the northern third of the state and includes parts of over 20 counties. It’s the largest congressional district in Wisconsin. 

Clark said his trip around the district helped him decide to make his case for new representation in Northern Wisconsin. 

“After talking among ourselves and following all of the drama coming out of Washington, we just decided to get on the road and try to put a pulse on what people were thinking about and talking about,” he said.

Clark took aim at congressman Tom Tiffany…and said Tiffany’s been “missing in action.”

“He was not holding public events,” he said. “Some of these really momentous decisions, like the big billionaire’s bill that came out of Washington that he voted for, he simply wasn’t willing to stand up and account for himself in public.”

Clark also criticized Republicans in Congress. He said they’ve failed to fulfill their congressional duty to impose checks and balances on the executive branch. 

“I think what we have right now, especially the Republicans in Congress, are basically running scared,” Clark said. “They’re afraid to stand up. They won’t even oppose this administration on some of the most basic things because they’re afraid of being tweeted at or attacked by this president.”

Clark’s announcement came on the first day of the federal government shutdown. This is the first shutdown since 2018.

 Republican candidate Jessi Ebben has also declared a run for the seat.

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