GAB Chair Asks Lawmakers To Delay Elections Agency Overhaul

The chair of Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board told Republican lawmakers that they should consider all their options before they dismantle the ethics and elections agency, saying such a move could have serious consequences during next year’s busy election cycle.

In a letter sent Tuesday to legislative leaders, Judge Gerald Nichol said that in addition to preparing for four regularly scheduled elections next year, the GAB is also working on implementing Wisconsin’s new voter I.D. law and upgrading the statewide voter registration system.

“The public and the agency’s customers will not be well served by rushing through a sweeping reorganization at this point in the election cycle,” Nichol said.

Spokeswomen for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald — the Legislature’s top Republicans — said leaders met Wednesday morning to finalize the bill to overhaul the GAB. They said the bill would be announced next week.

Republicans hinted recently that they’ll return to a system where partisan appointees make the decisions that are handled today by six nonpartisan reserve judges. That partisan system is precisely what lawmakers from both parties sought to avoid when they created the board in 2007.

Republicans have also suggested they’ll split the GAB into separate agencies, with one handling ethics issues and the other managing elections. That would also mirror Wisconsin’s old Ethics and Elections Boards, which existed prior to the GAB.

Nichol said a more deliberate approach would be for the Legislature to authorize the appointment of two non-voting members of the board, with one nominated by the Republican Party and one nominated by Democrats.

“The main reason for adding them to the Board would be to allow them to study the agency’s operations from the inside,” wrote Nichol.

After a year, Nichol said those members could report their findings and the Legislature could decide what, if anything, needed to be changed.

Nichol also told legislators that the GAB has seen “an exodus” of staff since Republicans started talking about dismantling the board. He said it would be unfortunate to lose more experienced staff.

“The people of the state of Wisconsin need to have confidence that the 2016 elections will be handled by the capable, professional staff currently in place,” Nichols said.