Two state lawmakers proposed new legislation to prevent Wisconsin legislators and public service commissioners from accepting jobs from special interests groups they worked closely with while in office.
Bills that attempt to block this ""revolving door\ of politics and crack down on government corruption were proposed Tuesday by state Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, and state Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison.
""The revolving door refers to when legislatures leave government services and go right into jobs with the very companies that they were regulating while in office,"" said Mark McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
""When legislators and regulators know they can count on receiving cushy jobs from the same corporations and groups they are supposed to oversee, people start to wonder whose interests they really represent,"" Lassa said in a statement.
Black said there is some current law that ""prohibits many high state officials from lobbying their former agencies for one year,"" but added that ""legislators are exempt and I don't think there is justification.""
Black and Lassa have proposed two companion bills to stop legislators from using the revolving door.
These proposed bills come on the heels of an ethics bill Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law last week, under a similar notion of promoting what Black called ""Wisconsin tradition of good government.""
The first bill prohibits any legislators from accepting jobs as a lobbyist for at least a year after leaving office. The bill will establish fines and possible imprisonment for offenses.
The second bill prohibits any Public Service Commissioner from being employed by any person that the PSC regulated for one year. This bill also has fines and possible imprisonment.
""The one-year waiting period would increase ethics with the government and, to some extent, reduce special interest influence,"" Black said.
He also said the bill will be one step further to improve the ethics of government, and expects support for the bill because there are many co-sponsors.
McCabe said he gives support to the new Legislature, which he said is ""much more favorable to reform now then it was before the Nov. 7 election.""
""The voters removed some legislators who had bad records on reform and they replaced them with some people with some good pro-reform credentials,"" McCabe said.
