It turns out that the man who holds the national record for legislative service, at 64 years, is Madison’s Fred Risser — who is none of those things. He was masterful in debate on the floor of the state Senate, but he can be halting when called upon to deliver extemporaneous remarks in a casual setting. And yet, Fred Risser served longer by far than anyone in any legislature in any state in the history of the United States. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1956, moved up to the state Senate in 1962, and he finally retired in 2020. And yet Fred Risser found a way to stay above the muck.