About

Mordecai Lee was born in Milwaukee in 1948. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970. He did his graduate work at Syracuse University (NY), receiving a Master of Public Administration (MPA) in 1972 and a PhD in public administration in 1975.

Moving to Washington, between 1972 and 1976 he was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and then legislative assistant to a member of Congress.

Returning home, Mordecai was elected in 1976 to the Wisconsin Legislature’s State Assembly from Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood and re-elected in 1978 and 1980. In 1982, he was elected to the State Senate from Milwaukee’s northwest side and re-elected in 1986. He chaired the Senate’s Environmental Resources Committee and co-chaired the Joint Audit Committee. In 1986, Milwaukee Magazine named him one of ‘Wisconsin’s Ten Best Legislators.’

After leaving politics voluntarily, in 1990 Mordecai was appointed executive director of Milwaukee’s Jewish Community Relations Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization promoting social justice and equal rights. He represented Milwaukee’s Jewish population in matters relating to legislation, public affairs, community relations, and as media spox.

In 1997, Mordecai joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as an assistant professor of governmental affairs. He was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in 2002 and in 2006 became a (full) professor. His research interests were in American history, government public relations, and nonprofit management. He authored eleven books published by university presses and over 70 articles in scholarly journals. In 2018, he shifted to emeritus status and continued engaging in research and civic affairs. Beginning in 2023, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK) released six volumes compiling his writings (mostly from his articles) on public administration, nonprofit management, government public relations, and American history.

Mordecai occasionally was asked by the media to provide nonpartisan analysis of political developments in Wisconsin. Over the years, he appeared on the NBC Nightly News, National Public Radio, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox Cable News, and DW (Deutsche Welle). In the print media, he was quoted by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Hill, and by the Bloomberg, Reuters, and Associated Press news services. Mordecai was also an election night analyst on a local TV station (WITI/Fox 6):

מרדכי לי