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Sources: Bill would overhaul controversial GAB (WI)
Wisconsiin Watchdog ^ | 10-7-15 | M. D. Kittle

Posted on 10/08/2015 8:37:37 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

MADISON, Wisconsin — Despite word that some members were getting weak-kneed about sweeping reform, GOP Assembly leadership is rolling out an overhaul of the state Government Accountability Board — a bill aimed at decentralizing a rogue agency its critics charge is run by left-leaning bureaucrats.

Sources tell Wisconsin Watchdog the proposed bill, to be laid out Wednesday afternoon, will replace the existing accountability board with two separate and distinct commissions — ethics and elections.

The GAB’s six presiding retired judges will be replaced.

Under the proposal, the Legislature would appoint four citizen members of the Elections commission, two from each party. The governor would appoint two current or former local government clerks from a list submitted by both parties in the Senate. Commission members would serve five-year terms.

Same with the Ethics Commission’s six members.

An administrator will direct the day-to-day operations of each commission. Each administrator would be appointed by the commission and confirmed by the Senate to four-year terms.

Sources say implementation would occur on June 30, 2016, ensuring enough time to transition. Critics have charged that any restructuring should be delayed in the face of the high turn-out presidential election ahead.

The bill, according to sources, maintains the restructuring elements proposed by state Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, last month.

“We need to take this thing apart,” said Knudson told Wisconsin Watchdog in a Sept. 15 interview.

“We have had an eight-year failed experiment in Wisconsin, an experiment that said if you put nonpartisan judges in charge of overseeing a combination of the elections oversight and ethics/lobbying and campaign finance oversight, you put that all together so they are under the auspices of one bureaucrat, that would somehow be a national model. Well, now what we’ve seen is not a national model. In fact, it’s a failure and it needs to be replaced,” Knudson said.

The bureaucrat in question? Kevin Kennedy, GAB director and 35-year government employee.

GAB defenders argue dismantling the “nonpartisan” agency and returning oversight of state campaign finance, elections and lobbying laws to partisans would be a disservice to democracy. The Legislature created the GAB in 2007 after constant complaints about the ineffectual state elections and ethics boards.

But the accountability board’s involvement in the political John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups and Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign have raised questions about the agency’s partisan motives.

Court-sealed GAB emails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and one obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog seem to expose former GAB staff attorney Shane Falk and his agency as hyper-partisan, a rogue regulator leading a politically charged campaign finance probe into Walker and dozens of conservative organizations.

Kennedy, too, has come under fire for his email communications with former IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner is accused of targeting conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) nonprofit status. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is looking into more than 6,000 emails from Lerner once thought lost.

Knudson has argued that a partisan board composed of residents and administrators with limited terms is better than a so-called nonpartisan agency whose agents appear to have acted in a partisan fashion.

“The key point that we’ve been trying to make is that ‘nonpartisan’ overseer does not mean that we don’t have partisan behavior,” the lawmaker said.

The provision to appoint elections clerks to the elections commission has come under fire by some leading conservatives. Former Federal Election Commission member Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has warned appointing elected officials to the board brings the baggage of bias. In his book, “Who’s Counting,” Spakovsky writes, “We’ve seen over and over … how conflicts of interest are created when election boards are run by those who must run for office themselves.”

Part 257 of 256 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Politics/Elections; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: ethicsandelections; gab; kevinkennedy; reform

GAB OVERHAUL: Assembly leaders on Wednesday will announce a bill aimed at making sweeping changes to the controversial state Government Accountability Board.

RELATED Knudson on GAB: ‘We need to take this thing apart’

1 posted on 10/08/2015 8:37:37 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic; onyx; Hunton Peck; Diana in Wisconsin; P from Sheb; Shady; DonkeyBonker; ...

Committee reveals Assembly plan for revamping the GAB. (Looks like they are going to “get” Kevin Kennedy at last.

FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.


2 posted on 10/08/2015 8:39:11 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

The Left can subvert anything.


3 posted on 10/08/2015 8:43:34 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

So the solution is to take a one-headey hydra and make it two-headed. Wonderful. The GOP always fails the leadership test. I feel sorry for the good people of Wisconsin, because the RATs will subvert these new groups just lie they did the GAB.


4 posted on 10/08/2015 9:04:23 AM PDT by vette6387
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