Ethics Head Asks For Investigation To Clear His Name

The dispute over a long-ago closed John Doe investigation involving Gov. Scott Walker took a new twist Friday when the administrator of Wisconsin’s Ethics Commission asked his own board to investigate him.

Ethics Commission Administrator Brian Bell is one of two officials targeted by Republican lawmakers following an investigation into the John Doe by Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel. The other is Elections Commission Administrator Mike Haas.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, of Juneau, has told them both to resign, suggesting that if they don’t, they’ll be forced out because the public has lost trust in them to lead the agencies.

Bell pushed back Friday, asking ethics commissioners to investigate him in order to clear his name.

“I believe that an objective review of my conduct in service to the state would definitively show that I have consistently conducted myself in a nonpartisan and impartial manner,” Bell said. “Such an investigation would also refute the baseless allegations that have been made against me.”

The Ethics Commission oversees campaign finance and ethics laws for the governor, legislators and other public officials. Together with the Elections Commission, it replaced the Government Accountability Board, which Republicans disbanded because of its role in the investigation known as John Doe 2.

Bell and Haas both worked for the GAB, and while Schimel’s report was critical of the now-defunct agency for not keeping the John Doe investigation secret, it did not assign blame for the leak to a newspaper and did not recommend criminal charges.

That has not stopped Fitzgerald and other top Republicans from seizing on the report as a sign that the agency needs new people to run it.

Senate Republicans voted Thursday to ask Schimel to expand his investigation into other long-ago closed GAB probes involving legislators.

Bell and Haas have not been confirmed by the Senate, and Fitzgerald has hinted that if the full Senate votes, their confirmations would be rejected.

It was against that backdrop that members of the Ethics Commission came to Bell’s defense Friday.

“I have seen no inkling of any kind of any partisanship by Mr. Bell since he was hired by the commission,” said Ethics Commissioner Mac Davis, a former Republican state senator and judge who was appointed to the Ethics Commission by Gov. Walker.

“In my opinion there has not been one whiff of partisanship whatsoever from our administrator,” said Jeralyn Wendelberger, who was appointed to the commission by Senate Minority Leader Jen Shilling, D-La Crosse. “I would invite the leaders to please tell us what they mean by that.”