Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) on Wednesday signed into law Assembly Bill 388, ending the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) and transitioning its work into two separate agencies for elections and ethics. GAB was involved with a three-years-long “John Doe” investigation against free-market organizations that supported Walker during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4–2 on July 11 that the investigation was unconstitutional.
The following statements from constitutional and budget and tax experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Jim Lakely, Director of Communications, The Heartland Institute, at [email protected] or 312/377-4000.
“Governor Walker took the first step today in reassuring free speech rights for participants in Wisconsin’s political process by signing into law Assembly Bill 388 replacing the supposedly non-partisan Government Accountability Board with two separate agencies for elections and ethics.
“The signing of AB 388 will create two new agencies that will be more accountable to the taxpayers of Wisconsin. The GAB failed miserably in its job of administering elections in a non-partisan fashion, hiring to key staff positions former partisan political operatives. The first priority for the new agencies is to make sure we will never see a repeat of what happened with the ‘John Doe.'”
Kyle Maichle
Project Manager for Constitutional Reform
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 31-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
