Assembly Republicans proposed a bill Wednesday that would split the board that regulates Wisconsin’s elections into two separate agencies.
The bill seeks to create separate Ethics and Elections Boards and enact more thorough transparency rules for each body. Established in 2008, six former judges currently sit on the Government Accountability Board, which oversees all elections in the state. Many Republicans feel the body has favored Democrats in its rulings.
“For the last eight years we’ve seen one problem after another,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said at a press conference Wednesday, citing “serious lapses in the oversight of our elections” and the John Doe investigation into members of Gov. Scott Walker’s staff.
If passed, the state would have six months to set up the new committees. Both new boards would consist of six members each, two appointed by Democrats and two by Republicans. Each party would then nominate a pool of candidates for the final two spots, and the governor would choose one member from each party.
State Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, authored the bill. He said the new committees would succeed in promoting the kind of transparency he felt the GAB lacked.
“They need to be accountable to the public, accountable to the legislature and accountable to those whom they’re regulating,” Knudson said.
Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, called out Republicans for using the bill to distract from more pressing issues.
“Given the recent attacks on open record laws, high-profile criminal investigations and repeated instances of cronyism, it’s clear that we need more government accountability, not less,” Shilling said in a statement.
