Leland McParland

He was first elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1940 as a Democrat, representing Milwaukee County's southern suburbs. He served as the floor leader for the Democrats in the 1945-1950 sessions. He was first elected to the Senate in 1954, and was reelected in 1958, 1962, and 1966.^[2] In 1970 he was unseated in the Democratic primary by Kurt Frank in a four-way race which included John Plewa, himself later to succeed Frank as senator from this district.^[3]

It was in part due to McParlan's strategic place in the Senate that the "Oak Creek Law" was passed in 1955, enabling semi-rural Oak Creek, part of his district, to incorporate as a city, thus frustrating annexation by the City of Milwaukee.^[4]

When student demonstrators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison took over campus in 1967 in protest over the presence of Dow Chemical, manufacturers of napalm, McParland pronounced, "We should shoot them if necessary. I would, I would, because it's insurrection."^[5]