Scott Walker Wants To Dismantle Government Accountability Board
Credit: www.thedailybeast.com
July 22, 2015

Yep, he plans to stack the deck so no Wisconsin Republican is ever held accountable for anything ever again:

Gov. Scott Walker says he supports dismantling and replacing the state’s independent elections and ethics board, ratcheting up Republicans’ calls for change to a board that helped investigate Walker’s 2012 recall campaign.

Walker told reporters Monday he wants to scrap the state’s Government Accountability Board, or GAB, which enforces campaign finance, elections, ethics and lobbying laws.
In its place, Walker said, he supports the creation of “something completely new that is truly accountable to the people of the state of Wisconsin.” Walker left open the possibility that a replacement board could have partisan leadership, compared to the current board, made up of six former judges.

The Government Accountability Board’s director and supporters quickly responded. They called the board a national model that’s being targeted by politicians who resent its watchdog role.

“The attacks on the GAB’s impartiality are a poorly disguised power grab,” said Daniel Tokaji, a national elections expert and law professor at Ohio State University.

Walker’s remarks come after the state Supreme Court ruled last week to end an investigation into whether conservative groups illegally coordinated with Walker in the 2012 recall election campaign. The board assisted prosecutors in the John Doe investigation, and since then, many Republicans have questioned its impartiality.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, on Thursday called for the state Department of Justice to investigate the board. The co-chairpersons of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, called for the board’s director, Kevin Kennedy, to step down.

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