State Elections Commission chief stepping down amid criticism from Republicans

MADISON - The head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission said he would move out of his leadership role and eventually leave the agency because of opposition from Republican lawmakers.

Administrator Mike Haas announced the news in a letter this week to the commission's bipartisan board.

Last month GOP state senators denied the confirmations for Haas and his counterpart at the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. The rejection of their confirmation stemmed from a controversial investigation of Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans by the Government Accountability Board, the agency that preceded both commissions.

Haas said he had little to do with that investigation and had achieved a record of success since GOP lawmakers and Walker disbanded the GAB in December 2015 and created his agency.

"Rather than celebrating that success and taking credit for it, some have focused on settling scores with imaginary ghosts of the Government Accountability Board. My appointment was a casualty of that obsession," Haas wrote in his letter.

Senate Republicans had argued that by rejecting confirmation for Haas on a party-line 18-13 vote they had essentially fired him. But Haas had initially disagreed with the GOP lawmakers' interpretation of the law and had been considering fighting to stay in his job.

But such a battle would have been difficult and might have imperiled the commission's work, Haas wrote in his letter. Instead, Haas said he would move for a short time into a staff counsel job at the Elections Commission and then leave the agency entirely.

The Elections Commission is expected to vote Friday on whether to name assistant administrator Meagan Wolfe to fill Haas' position in an interim capacity.

Also Tuesday, the Ethics Commission voted 4-2 to name ethics specialist Colette Reinke as the interim replacement for former administrator Brian Bell, who also resigned after the Senate rejected his confirmation. Reinke will serve for 90 days and not apply for the permanent job.

Republicans Katie McCallum and Pat Strachota voted against Reinke's appointment, with Strachota saying afterward that she had wanted more candidates to consider.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau said last month that his fellow Republicans had lost faith in the Ethics Commission and Elections Commission because they continue to employ people who worked for the GAB during the probe of Walker and Senate Republicans. That sweeping investigation was shut down in 2015 after the state Supreme Court concluded nothing illegal occurred.

Fitzgerald also said last month he wants the Legislature's budget committee to cut the positions for two other former GAB employees with greater job protections known as civil service status — Nathan Judnic, counsel at the Elections Commission, and David Buerger, counsel at the Ethics Commission.

"I wish they'd all resign," Fitzgerald said last month of former accountability board employees.

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Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said he didn't expect his panel to take up the issue of the Judnic and Buerger jobs.

For their part, Democratic lawmakers have criticized Republicans for carrying out a vendetta against state elections and ethics workers.

“This is a first-rate hatchet job,” Sen. Fred Risser (D-Madison) said during the Senate confirmation votes in January.