Amid John Doe fallout, heads of Wisconsin ethics and elections commissions fight for their jobs

MADISON - Brian Bell removed roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the efforts now to force him out of his job as the head of the state Ethics Commission are mild by comparison.

“No one’s — at least not yet — trying to shoot at me or blow me up,” Bell said in a recent interview down the street from the Capitol.

But the risks for Bell — as well as Michael Haas, the director of the state Elections Commission — are real. Republicans who control the state Senate say they plan to vote Jan. 23 to deny their confirmations as a way to push them out of their jobs.

The GOP senators are trying to drive them out of their posts because the pair previously worked for the now-disbanded Government Accountability Board, which spent years investigating Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans.

Bell and Haas said they have conducted themselves professionally and there is no reason they should leave. Bell was not involved in the investigations of Republicans. Haas was not part of the core investigation team, but did review legal filings when a John Doe probe of Walker’s campaign was challenged in court.

The two have the unanimous support of their commissions, each consisting of three Republicans and three Democrats. The backing from GOP commissioners appears to have done little to relieve the concerns of Republicans who control the Senate 18-13.

In 2015, Walker and Republican lawmakers approved dissolving the accountability board because of its role in the John Doe investigation of the campaigns of Walker and other Republicans. The move came soon after the state Supreme Court terminated the probe, finding nothing illegal occurred.

Legislators replaced the accountability board with the bipartisan ethics and elections commissions, which chose Bell and Haas as their leaders.

The pair came under renewed scrutiny last month when GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel issued a report on his attempts to find out who leaked secret material from the probe in 2016 to the Guardian U.S. newspaper.

Schimel wasn’t able to figure out who leaked the material but found it came from the accountability board. That prompted Republican lawmakers to call for Bell and Haas to go.

Bell joined the military at 17 and is a captain in the Army Reserve. He volunteered to go to Iraq in 2006 and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010.

In 2012, he took a job with the accountability board. He collected election statistics for counties and municipalities and later regulated lobbyists.

He left that job in 2015 in part because he didn’t like the way the accountability board was run and became a budget analyst with the Department of Safety and Professional Services.

In response to the latest controversy, Bell last month asked the Ethics Commission to investigate him in hopes of clearing his name. Commissioners hired former Dane County Circuit Judge Patrick Fiedler to do that work, which is being conducted in secret.

“I’m very confident that I’ve conducted myself in a nonpartisan and respectful manner and that an investigation could illustrate that the allegations I’ve acted otherwise could be proven false,” Bell said.

Fiedler has sought to interview Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who have criticized Bell and called for his ouster. They have declined to talk to him.

In a Thursday letter to Fiedler, Nass wrote that his investigation smacked of “intimidation” and was “an attempt to interfere with the Wisconsin State Senate’s role of confirmation.”

He wrote that he thought Bell had not properly secured sensitive records and had not cooperated enough with the leak investigation. He wrote that he had told Bell a year ago he had reservations about his appointment because he previously worked for the accountability board.

“I felt then and now that the Ethics Commission won’t be able to exit the clouds of the GAB scandal without appointing an administrator free of any connections to that rogue agency,” he wrote.

Haas is getting a similar reception. He has been working on elections issues for the state for nine years and has endured fights over recalls, recounts, hacking attempts and voter ID.

“I would challenge anybody in the Senate to find anyone I have dealt with in the last nine years who wouldn’t say I have treated them with respect and civility,” he said.

In recent weeks, Haas has sought meetings with Fitzgerald without success. He said he is frustrated that Fitzgerald won’t allow a confirmation hearing before the vote.

“That’s one disappointing aspect, to not have any communication, any willingness to explain what they think I did wrong,” he said.

Haas ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly as a Democrat in 1992 and 1994. After that, he worked for a decade as a municipal attorney for Stoughton, Edgerton and Milton and then took jobs with the accountability board and Elections Commission.

He said his partisan past is well behind him and he has worked in an even-handed manner. Democrats and Republicans alike were frustrated by decisions the accountability board made, as is typical in matters dealing with campaign finance and how elections are run, he said.

Republicans “didn’t invent outrage about elections or the GAB,” he said.

Bell and Haas did not say what they would do if they are rejected by the Senate.

Elections Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen, a Democrat, has said he does not believe the Senate has the power to remove Haas and raised the prospect the Senate would have to sue his commission to try to remove him. Haas said he is focused on trying to win the vote and will determine later what he’ll do if he loses it.

Likewise, Bell said he is hoping he can survive the vote and is not sure what he’ll do if it doesn't go his way.