GAB Kept on Defensive at Public Hearing

“The GAB failed to meet many of its statutory mandated tasks and the retired judges appointed to supervise the GAB’s activities were inattentive at best”, Vukmir says.

If this bill passes, we’d be back to where we were pre-GAB with the foxes in charge of the henhouse. Up for discussion is a bill that would dissolve the non-partisan GAB, which oversees elections and government ethics laws in Wisconsin.

“It was naïve to think that you could have a nonpartisan board, and we have to sometimes admit that we made a mistake”, she said. “You want to go back to a toothless agency?” said Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, D-Milwaukee.

The proposal is moving quickly through the Republican-controlled Legislature and could be voted on as early as next week. “You want to move away from this nationally-lauded nonpartisan watchdog”, she said. The GOP is seething over the GAB’s handling of John Doe investigations into whether Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign illegally coordinated with special-interest groups.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board went after Kennedy in July, publishing excerpts of emails between Kennedy and Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversaw audits of tax-exempt conservative groups.

GAB director Kevin Kennedy gave a spirited defense of the almost 8-year-old board, saying the real goal is to exert more political control over an independent arm of the government, which he said would weaken regulation and lead to more corruption going undetected. Kennedy responded, comparing the questions to 1950s-era McCarthyism.

“Well you can refuse my question, director, but I will ask the question”, Kapenga replied.

Kennedy told reporters afterward that he has known Lerner for 20 years and has had a professional friendship with her during that time.

Republicans are pushing legislation that would dismantle the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board and replace it with two boards with Democratic and Republican members chosen by the Legislature and governor.