Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won't say if he wants to oust state ethics and elections chiefs

MADISON - As Republican state senators prepare to oust the state's ethics and elections chiefs, GOP Gov. Scott Walker won't say if he agrees the pair should go.

Three times on Friday, Walker sidestepped questions about whether he thought the Senate should deny the confirmations of ethics director Brian Bell and elections director Michael Haas.

"I’ll leave that up to them and focus on our ambitious agenda," Walker told reporters.

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He made similar remarks when pressed on the issue. Senate Republicans say they plan to deny the confirmations of Bell and Haas on Tuesday, even though their bipartisan commissions unanimously support them.

Asked if he supported GOP senators or his own appointees to the commissions on whether Bell and Haas should go, Walker said, "If they support my ambitious agenda, then we’re on the right track."

The effort to remove Bell and Haas stems from John Doe investigations of the campaigns of Walker and other Republicans conducted by prosecutors and the state Government Accountability Board. The state Supreme Court in 2015 terminated a probe of Walker's campaign that the court concluded was unfounded.

In response to that ruling, Walker and Republican lawmakers dissolved the accountability board and replaced it with the Ethics Commission and Elections Commission, which each consist of three Republicans and three Democrats.

The commissions hired Bell and Haas, who both previously worked for the accountability board.

Bell and Haas 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 Walker 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. They previously worked for the accountability board.

Bell did not work on the investigations. Haas was not part of the core investigation team but reviewed legal filings when the investigation was challenged in court.