ETHICS BOARD: NO VIOLATION BY DOYLE AIDE
By By David Callender The Capital Times
An attorney for Gov. Jim Doyle did not violate ethics laws by urging members of the Elections Board to act against Doyle's Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, the state Ethics Board ruled Friday.
In a carefully worded decision, the ethics board said that Doyle's attorney, Michael Maistelman, did not violate a longstanding legal ban on secret communications between parties in a dispute and official decision-makers.
In phone calls and e-mails to three Democratic Elections Board appointees, Maistelman urged them to vote to bar Green from transferring nearly $468,000 from his congressional campaign fund into his gubernatorial war chest.
Maistelman wrote one elections board member, "Even if this ends up in court, it is a P.R. victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington, D.C., dirty money."
The Ethics Board said it undertook a review of the issue "because the making of secret, off the record (ex parte) communications in a contested manner appears to improper and inimical to good government."
The Ethics Board concluded, however, that Maistelman's contacts with Elections Board members were not improper because the Elections Board does not have the power to enforce its own decisions.
The Ethics Board initially questioned the Elections Board's contention, noting that the board "ordered" Green to get rid of the money.
"When something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it usually is a duck," the Ethics Board wrote in its decision.
But the Ethics Board deferred to the explanations of Elections Board director Kevin Kennedy and the Elections Board's chief legal counsel George Dunst, who argued that the Elections Board does not have the power to enforce its own decisions.
Kennedy and Dunst argued that the Elections Board's "order" relied on voluntary compliance by Green; to enforce the order, the Elections Board would have to file suit in circuit court and the final decision would be up to a judge.
Green challenged the Elections Board's ruling in Dane County Circuit Court last month and lost. He is now appealing the court's decision to the state Supreme Court.
Citing the Elections Board's interpretation of its role, the Ethics Board ruled that Maistelman's contacts with Elections Board members did not violate the law.
But the Ethics Board's decision left the door open for further review if a court decides that the Elections Board's action constituted a legal order to give up the money.
The Ethics Board noted that Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general this fall, is also investigating the matter.
Doyle's campaign called the Ethics Board decision a victory. Green's campaign had no immediate response.