Daniel Bice, veteran Wisconsin political reporter and columnist, dies at 62

Everyone talked to Daniel Bice – whether they admitted it or not.

A veteran political reporter, Bice could conjure a politician’s personal phone number in seconds and never feared knocking on the door of someone he was trying to reach. 

Bice, who worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 33 years, died from complications of esophageal cancer on April 21, his birthday. 

He had just turned 62.

“Dan was fearless and fierce, a relentless reporter who wrote with clarity and precision. He knew how to cultivate sources and chase a story,” said Greg Borowski, executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He thought nothing of driving five hours to stick a notebook in the governor’s face, willing to ask any question – and take the blowback that came with it.

“His loss is a blow to the community, the profession and especially for our team here.”

A native of West Virginia, Bice started his Wisconsin career in the Madison bureau of the Milwaukee Sentinel and then the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after the two papers merged in 1995.

A few years later, the paper’s leadership wanted a new, buzzy watchdog column and tapped Bice and Cary Spivak, a business reporter, to write it. The pair, nicknamed the “Spice Boys,” earned national awards and scored countless scoops, including one that ended the political career of former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist.

“The two of us working together, it was kind of the odd couple,” Spivak said. “He’s West Virginia, I’m Chicago ‘burbs. But we got along good. We had no sets of rules on how to do stuff, we would just argue it out, but we both had similar news judgment.”

Bice later went on to author his own column, “No Quarter,” where he wrote about scandals big and small, from all sides of the political spectrum. He always responded to readers with a mix of humor and humility, especially his critics, who flooded his email inbox and online chats.

When one called him a “liberal activist” in 2014, Bice pointed to his three critical pieces about Democratic politicians that he had just published the week prior.  “But here’s the lesson,” Bice added. “We should all spend more time paying attention to what I am actually writing and publishing. Then maybe I’ll get a huge raise.”

Even with his column, Bice never stopped reporting the news.

He broke countless stories and distinguished himself among Wisconsin’s press corps with his relentless coverage of Milwaukee County prosecutors’ “John Doe” investigations into Scott Walker’s time as Milwaukee County executive and as governor.

“As someone at a different outlet at the time, it was impossible to keep up with him,” said Mary Spicuzza, who joined the Journal Sentinel in 2015 after covering politics at the Wisconsin State Journal.

“Dan Bice was the most feared man in Wisconsin politics,” she added. “To me, he was larger than life – a legend who became my mentor, my work husband and one of my best friends.”

In recent years, he covered the record-breaking state Supreme Court race between Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel, the arrest and resulting court case of former Milwaukee Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, and the campaign of gubernatorial hopeful Bill Berrien, who ended his political run after Bice reported on his online activity.

“I used to kid him that he was equal opportunity in the sense that he’d go after Republicans and Democrats,” said Walker, a Republican and former governor.

“There were times when I liked what he wrote, and there were other times that I didn’t like it at all,” he said. “It probably was a good sign he was pursuing the role of the journalist, which was without regard to politics or other bias, just exposing things that needed to be exposed.”

For all the sharpness of his writing – Milwaukee Magazine once described him “as an assassin with a pen” – Bice hardly ever raised his voice with sources or colleagues. He had a preternatural ability to stay calm even in the most confrontational or tense interviews.

At a retirement celebration for Spivak last summer, Bice gave one of many speeches in his friend’s honor. Bice later told a colleague that he left out the last thing he wanted to thank Spivak for – carrying the column for months while Bice navigated a family crisis – because he feared he would not be able to finish without tears.

Beyond the paper, Bice was an avid music-lover and frequent concert-goer. If you asked if he had heard of a band, he undoubtedly had. He could spend hours discussing politics, history and religion with wit and humor, and he led historical tours to Greece and other countries.

Bice grew up in a household steeped in religious fundamentalism. He earned undergraduate degrees in ancient Greek and English at Bryan College, a small Christian college in Tennessee, and a master’s degree in social science from the University of Chicago.

His college experience shaped him and started to change his career path.

“Parts of my faith started falling apart. I don’t think it ever fell apart completely,” Bice said during a Rotary event last year. “But you know, when you start reading texts in the original language, things aren’t quite as they seem sometimes.”

He noticed a job listing for “liberal arts majors” from the Poynter Institute in Florida, a nonprofit that trains journalists and covers the media industry. He landed one of the coveted 15 positions after more than 350 people applied, and started reporting at the St. Petersburg Times in 1986.

In an early sign of his single-mindedness on a story, he had raced back to the newsroom with the latest from a meeting about a potential baseball stadium development. His mind completely occupied with the story, he didn’t see a red light and hit another car, which then hit a house.

“My editors are wondering where I am, and I’m trying to explain to the cop, this is super important and I’ve got to get back to the newspaper to write this,” Bice recalled during the Rotary talk. “They’re like, you’re not going anywhere.”

After his time in St. Petersburg, Bice returned to West Virginia, where he covered state politics – including the indictment of 10 state lawmakers over five years – before coming to Wisconsin. He had interviewed at both papers, the Journal and Sentinel. The Journal offered him a job writing feature stories. The Sentinel offered him a position covering the governor’s office.

He chose the Sentinel. An editor at the Journal sent him a note telling him he had made the “worst career decision” of his life.

“I still have the letter,” Bice said.

And he never looked back.

Daniel Bice is survived by his wife, Jessica Hodgson; his father, David Bice, and his wife, Alice; his siblings, Penny Bice, Cheryl Bice, Jeffrey Bice and his wife, Roberta, Richard Bice and his wife, Sandra Sim; and his children, Zachary Bice and his wife, Alex, Sophie Bice and her husband, Ben Teich, and Raney Bice, as well as numerous nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his mother, Patty Adkins.

Funeral arrangements are pending.