ELECTIONS BOARD PROBE SET; GOP ALSO MADE CONTACT
By By Scott Bauer Associated Press
On the same day a district attorney announced he will investigate alleged improper lobbying of Elections Board members by an attorney for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, the head of the state Republican Party said he too had conversations with a board member the day before a key vote.
At issue is the appropriateness and legality of conversations and e-mails that took place prior to the board voting 5-2 on Aug. 30 to require Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to return nearly $468,000 in campaign donations.
Three Democrats who voted for Green to return the money had been contacted in the days leading up to the vote by Doyle attorney Michael S. Maistelman.
Elections Board attorney George Dunst has said there was nothing illegal about the contact, and Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said Friday he will not be launching an investigation.
But Paul Bucher, the Waukesha County district attorney who lost in the Sept. 12 Republican primary for attorney general, said Friday he believes he has jurisdiction to look into the allegations surrounding the meeting in Brookfield, which is in his county.
Bucher said he plans to look for violations of the state's open meeting laws, ethics code and lobbying statutes.
As it turns out, Maistelman wasn't the only party operative talking with board members before the vote.
Republican Party Executive Director Rick Wiley said Friday that he spoke with board member John Savage, a Republican who was selected to serve by the party, on the day before the vote. Wiley said he called Savage to consult with him after being told that Savage was telling people at a GOP fundraiser he did not believe the vote was going to go in favor of Green.
Wiley said Savage told him that given the partisan makeup of the board -- which has four Democrats, three Republicans, one Libertarian and one nonpartisan appointee -- it was unlikely Green's position would win out. Wiley said he told Savage he had to agree, but they didn't discuss any other strategy about the vote.
A call to Savage's home late Friday night rang unanswered.
Wiley said he talked to no other board members and he knows of no one else with the party or Green's campaign who spoke to the board.
Doyle's campaign seized on the news.
"For days Republicans have been pointing fingers at everyone but themselves to distract voters from the simple fact that Congressman Green violated state and federal laws with his illegal transfer," said Doyle spokeswoman Melanie Fonder. "What's wrong here is the Republican hypocrisy has been exposed."
Wiley said he figured that would be the Democratic response, but his brief conversation with Savage was different from the e-mails Maistelman sent which outlined in detail specific action board members should take and how they should vote.
"He was bound and determined to write the language for this transfer and how they were going to deem that Mark Green did this illegally," Wiley said.
The three Democrats who were lobbied by Maistelman, along with another Democrat and a Libertarian board member, voted in favor of the order against Green. Savage and another Republican member voted against it.
State Sen. Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, the chairman of the Senate Ethics and Campaign Finance Committee and a longtime advocate for ethics reforms, said it appeared to him that Doyle was trying to influence a state entity for political gain.
"Everything about this incident smells bad," Ellis said. "Clearly, it raises many questions with regard to ethical and even criminal conduct. These questions need to be investigated seriously by the proper officials."
The state attorney general's office also is looking into possible open meetings law violations related to Maistelman's lobbying, said Deputy Attorney General Dan Bach on Friday before Wiley's phone call came to light.
The number of contacts and the matters discussed in the e-mails necessitate a review into whether there were violations of the state's open meetings law, Bach said.
In the e-mails, Maistelman advises board members Carl Holborn, Robert Kasieta and Kerry Dwyer on how they should vote, saying even if it ends up in court it would be a PR victory for Doyle's campaign and force Green to spend money defending it.
Two of the three contacted by Maistelman -- Holborn and Dwyer -- said the lobbying had no impact on how they voted. Kasieta did not return a message left Thursday and was out of the office Friday.
The state Republican Party called for the three board members to resign.
Assembly Majority Leader Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, said Friday that he expects reforms of the ethics and elections processes to be among the top priorities of the Legislature next year.
But Huebsch was leading the Assembly earlier this year when it killed a bill that would have merged the state Elections and Ethics boards into one regulatory body to enforce laws governing elections, lobbying and ethics and investigate and prosecute corruption.
Huebsch said the latest questions over how the Elections Board handled the Green issue will spur lawmakers to act next year.
"Clearly the Elections Board's reputation has probably been tarnished forever as to whether they can make an unbiased decision," he said.