Mark G. Lipscomb, Jr., (born September 1, 1935) is an American lawyer, former

postal clerk A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

and politician from

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

who served four terms as a Democratic member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Assembly is controlled by the Republican ...

and one partial term in the

Wisconsin State Senate The Wisconsin Senate is the upper house of the Wisconsin State Legislature. Together with the Wisconsin State Assembly they constitute the legislative branch of the state of Wisconsin. The powers of the Wisconsin Senate are modeled after those o ...

Background

Lipscomb was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 1, 1935. He graduated from

Marquette University High School Marquette University High School (MUHS) is a private, all-male, Jesuit school located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is accredited by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement, an accreditation division of Co ...

, and earned a B.S. in

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

from

Marquette University Marquette University () is a Private university, private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It was established as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, by John Henni, the first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Ar ...

in 1957 (he was a track athlete, specializing in the half-mile run and president of the track club). He served in the

Marines Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included Raid (military), raiding ashor ...

from 1957 to 1960, then got a

LL.B. A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

from Marquette's

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

in 1964. In addition to his law practice, he has worked as a postal clerk, and belonged to the

United Federation of Postal Clerks The United Federation of Postal Clerks (UFPC) was a labor union representing clerks working for the post office in the United States. History The union was established on April 17, 1961, with the merger of the National Federation of Post Office Cl ...

Public office

In 1964 Lipscomb ran for the Assembly's first

Milwaukee County Milwaukee County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At the 2020 census, the population was 939,489, down from 947,735 in 2010. It is both the most populous and most densely populated county in Wisconsin, containing about 1 ...

District (the 1st

Ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

of the City of Milwaukee, and the 6th Ward of the City of Glendale). After unseating incumbent Stan Pelecky with a

plurality Plurality may refer to: Law and politics * Plurality decision, in a decision by a multi-member court, an opinion held by more judges than any other but not by an overall majority * Plurality (voting), when a candidate or proposition polls more ...

in a six-way Democratic

primary election Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pr ...

(36.9% to Pelecky's 29.6%), he was unopposed in the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

. He was assigned to the

standing committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

s on

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and

third reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming ...

(chairing the latter), and to Wisconsin Legislative Council

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joint committees to study Wisconsin's

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and Milwaukee County's children's court system (chairing the latter). He was unopposed in the 1966 primary, and beat his Republican opponent Herbert Schollmeyer 7054 to 2086. After an easy win in the 1970 primary, he again defeated Schollmeyer in the general election, by a larger margin. In 1971, Lipscomb ran for the 6th District State Senate seat vacated when Martin J. Schreiber was elected

Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin The lieutenant governor of Wisconsin is the first person in the Gubernatorial lines of succession in the United States#Wisconsin, line of succession of Wisconsin's executive branch, thus serving as governor in the event of the death, resignation, ...

. He won his March 2 primary with 3445 votes to 2828 for fellow State Representative Paul Sicula. In the April 6

general election, he won easily, with 6709 votes to 1735 for Republican James Mallas. Lipscomb (a strong unicameralist), tried to take his office as Senator while retaining his Assembly seat, arguing that "I might have stayed as chairman of the (Assembly) Judiciary Committee. I had the second-most number of bills in committee. I had a pact with Paul Sicula that we could get all the bills out. I could have gone over to sit in Schreiber's seat. Almost everything in the Senate is by acclamation. I could have sat there and kept track of everything going on in the Assembly." Lipscomb ran unsuccessfully in the spring of 1972 for Milwaukee city attorney, and actively lobbied to make sure that the revised 6th District was one which reflected the increased number of

African-Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

in Milwaukee County. In the Senate, Lipscomb faced a drastically changed district. In the wake of the decennial legislative

redistricting Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. For the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures, redistricting occurs after each ten-year census. The U.S. Constitution in Art ...

, it had a very different composition. In a racially charged atmosphere, Lipscomb (who had said the 60%-black district deserved a black senator "but not yet, because I'm running") lost the Democratic nomination to long-time community activist

Monroe Swan Monroe Swan (born June 2, 1937) is a retired American government administrator and Democratic politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the first African American member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing Wisconsin's 6th Senate district fr ...

, who mustered a plurality in a three-way race, with 3256 votes for Swan, 2729 for Lipscomb, and 987 for Roger Hansen. Lipscomb unsuccessfully challenged the primary results, alleging fraud, including assertions that Hansen (a white

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employee) was a fraudulent candidate recruited and supported by the Swan campaign to dilute the white vote in the race in return for money or a job. Swan would eventually lose his office due to a felony conviction for

election fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

in another race.

After the Senate

Lipscomb returned to the practice of law; he has served as a local

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

in River Hills and Brown Deer. In his college days at Marquette, he was a track athlete, specializing in the half-mile run (now 800 meters). He remained on the governing board of the

Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin that is responsible for veterans programs. The department is overseen by a secretary who is appointed by the governor after consulting with at leas ...

; and in 1979 made an unsuccessful bid to election as a Milwaukee County

circuit court Circuit courts are court systems in several common law jurisdictions. It may refer to: * Courts that literally sit 'on circuit', i.e., judges move around a region or country to different towns or cities where they will hear cases; * Courts that s ...

judge. In 1992, he lost a tight three-way primary contest for the Democratic nomination to the 23rd Assembly District seat, coming in second to eventual victor

John La Fave John La Fave (born July 13, 1949) is an American politician who served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from the 23rd district from 1993 to 2003. Early life and education Born in Milwaukee, La Fave graduated from Wauwatosa West Hig ...

. His son Theodore "Theo" Lipscomb was on the

Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors is the legislative branch of the government of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. Supervisors are elected to the board in nonpartisan elections. There are 18 supervisors. The county board has seve ...

. Another son, Christopher, is the North Shore Municipal Court judge for Glendale and Brown Deer.Meidenbauer, Michael. "Lipscomb to run unopposed for North Shore court judgeship"] ''Baysidenow.com'' January 3, 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lipscomb, Mark 1935 births Living people Marquette University alumni Marquette University Law School alumni Democratic Party members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Politicians from Milwaukee American postal officials United States Marines Wisconsin lawyers Democratic Party Wisconsin state senators Lawyers from Milwaukee 20th-century members of the Wisconsin Legislature