It’s not often that I give any credit to state Sen. Mike Ellis (RINO-Neenah), but I have to this time. According to JSOnline’s PoliticsWatch, he found a possibly-fatal flaw in the plan to replace the Ethics and Elections Boards with a newly-constituted Government Accountability Board. In Ellis’ jealous eyes (jealous because his plan at “reform” got shot down last year and will never see the light of day), the requirement that those that serve on that GAB cannot run for office within 1 year of leaving that board is “patently unconstitutional”, as he seems to see a near-absolute constitutional right to run for office. I’ll leave that to the likes of Rick Esenberg and Jeff Wagner to comment intelligently on whether that could be a legitimate concern or just another one of Ellis’ stunts.
Worse, there is an unusual clause in the bill that not only requires the entire package to be made void if any portion is ruled unconstitutional, but that the Ethics and Election Boards remain defunct. Usually, lawmakers include “severability” clauses to bills that expressly state if a portion is ruled unconstitutional, the remainder remains in force.
Either way, Craps wins. Either he gets a board where he picked every last member to replace one board where he has effective control of half the members (one directly, the other 3 through his party apparatus, and a tie-breaking 5th picked by the überliberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson) and another where he would have full control before 2010, or he has nobody other than an attorney general who saw nothing wrong at the governor’s mansion while US Attorney for western Wisconsin to worry about at the state level.
