During the 2011 Wisconsin protests over the state budget, Cronon started a blog called "Scholar as Citizen." His first blog post, on March 15, 2011, was about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that provides model legislation to Republican and Democratic state legislators. According to Anthony Grafton of "The New Yorker", "Cronon argued from indirect evidence that ALEC had played a major role behind the scenes in Governor Walker's attack on public employee unions in Wisconsin. He also argued that this sort of political work, though legitimate, should be done in the open."