Adam Brabender hopes to be the first “gay with a disability” elected to the Dane County Board.
Adam Brabender has been challenged much of his life, but these days he’s doing a little challenging of his own.
Last month, the 34-year-old filed paperwork with the Dane County Clerk’s Office announcing his intent to unseat Mary Kolar for the county board’s District 1 seat.
“There are a lot of issues, so we need someone who can get the job done,” he explains during a recent interview at a State Street cafe. “I believe I am exactly that person.”
With the primaries still six months away, Brabender — who currently sits on Madison’s Equal Opportunities Commission and the Capitol Neighborhoods Inc. executive council — is one of the first to challenge any of the board’s 37 incumbents, all of whom are up for reelection in April.
And from the looks of it, Brabender, who says he wants to become “the first gay with a disability to hold a public office,” will need all of the time he can get. It is his first run for public office.
He starts at a financial disadvantage. “I am poor,” he says.
Kolar, a former Navy captain elected in a 2013 special election, has $1,200 on hand, according to a campaign finance report filed last month.
District 1 covers a large piece of downtown around the Capitol Square.
Born autistic, Brabender attempted suicide while a Middleton High School student in 1992, following years of relentless harassment and bullying.
Earning an associate’s degree in human services following high school, Brabender worked at Tellurian, a facility for those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness.
One day at work, Brabender, then 24, experienced his first delusion. “I saw my body parts coming after me and coming into me,” he explains. “It was like my body was being put back together. It was very scary.”
After burning through his sick and personal leave, he lost the job he had worked at for seven years. Struggling through autism and a delusional disorder means he has experienced first-hand how people like him are treated.
“It’s a very humbling part of my life,” he says.
For the last six months he has worked at a local salon sweeping floors and stocking merchandise, small earnings to supplement his disability payments.
If elected, he wants to prod more dentists into accepting medical assistance so poor residents like him aren’t at risk of losing their teeth.
To help preserve more open space, Brabender says he would encourage farmers to sell land to the county as his family did in 2005 under a farmland preservation program.
“That’s 120 acres that will never be developed,” he says.
If all goes well, he could find himself elected to Congress, similar to his political inspirations, U.S. Rep. Marc Pocan and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, both of whom began their political careers as Dane County Board members.
But poverty is, perhaps, the most insurmountable challenge. “Even to run for county board you need around $10,000 to be competitive,” he says. “A lot of poor people can’t ever run for office because of that.”
In District 5, Savion Castro has also declared his candidacy. Leland Pan, who now represents the heavily student populated district, is not running for reelection.
The primary for the county board will be held on Feb. 16. The general election is April 5.