GOP lawmakers will appoint Wisconsin elections chief if commission doesn't act, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald says

MADISON - The leader of the state Senate says GOP lawmakers will appoint a director for the state Elections Commission if the bipartisan panel doesn’t find someone new to do the job in the next six weeks.

It's the latest escalation of a years-long fight that springs from an investigation of Republicans that the state Supreme Court shut down in 2015.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday rejected the confirmations of Michael Haas, director of the Elections Commission, and Brian Bell, director of the Ethics Commission.

The Elections Commission responded the next day by voting 4-2 to keep Haas as its leader at least through April 30. Republican Beverly Gill joined the commission's three Democrats in that move.

Fitzgerald in a statement late Thursday contended the move was "unlawful" and said he would have a committee of legislative leaders controlled by Republicans appoint a new leader for the commission if the commission doesn't act by early March.

State law allows the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization to appoint temporary directors for the commissions if they do not pick leaders within 45 days of a vacancy occurring.

Democrats on the Elections Commission argue the Senate didn't have the power to remove Haas. Fitzgerald's latest comments raise the prospect of the Elections Commission being assigned two leaders, with each side claiming the other's appointee is invalid.

Both sides have said the issue of who leads the commission may ultimately be decided by the courts, but so far no one has filed a lawsuit over the issue.

In his statement, Fitzgerald said it is essential that the commission quickly choose someone other than Haas to run elections to avoid a host of legal challenges.

"The Elections Commission must select a new administrator as soon as possible to ensure that the individual deciding ballot access, advising clerks and certifying election results is acting lawfully and legitimately," Fitzgerald said in his statement.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse), who sits on the legislative committee that could pick Haas' replacement, criticized Fitzgerald's plan.

“Sen. Fitzgerald is using a partisan legislative committee so that Republicans can hand-pick a political ally to oversee our state's elections," she said in a statement. "This is an egregious abuse of power that could cause voters to lose their confidence in the process and throw this year's elections into chaos."

Appointing a new director in March would fall in the middle of the spring election cycle. A primary for state Supreme Court and other offices is to be held Feb. 20, with the general election on April 3.

Election commissioners have said they want to keep Haas on at least through April so they could smoothly run those elections and canvass and certify the results.

Mark Thomsen, the Democratic chairman of the commission, said he was sticking by Haas.

"I believe it's a vendetta by Mr. Fitzgerald to try to destroy a decent human being," he said of Fitzgerald's effort to replace Haas.

The Ethics Commission took a different track than the Elections Commission. It voted 5-1 late Thursday to leave its top job open for now. It will discuss the issue further next month.

Bell has returned to a job as a policy analyst at the Department of Safety and Professional Services he held before he was named the head of the Ethics Commission.

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The state Supreme Court in 2015 shut down an investigation of GOP Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans that it concluded was unfounded. That probe was conducted by prosecutors and the state Government Accountability Board, which at the time administered the state's ethics and elections laws.

Walker and Republican lawmakers responded by dissolving the accountability board and replacing it with the two commissions.

The commissions hired Bell and Haas, who both previously worked for the accountability board. Bell did not work on the investigation of Republicans. Haas was not on the investigation team but edited court filings once the probe was challenged in court.

Their conduct came under scrutiny last month after GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel issued a report on his attempts to find out who leaked secret investigation documents to the Guardian U.S. newspaper. Schimel didn't determine who leaked the material but said it came from the accountability board.

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That prompted Republican senators to deny the confirmations for Bell and Haas, who had never been approved by the Senate in their time leading the agencies.

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