From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The state Ethics Board said today that no laws were broken when a lawyer for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and the executive director of the state Republican Party contacted members of the state Elections Board before a crucial vote against Doyle's political rival.
Doyle campaign attorney Mike Maistelman e-mailed three Democrats on the Elections Board advising them to vote to order U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican, to divest nearly $468,000 from his gubernatorial campaign account. Rick Wiley, the state GOP executive director, spoke by phone with a Republican appointee on the board before that vote as well.
The Elections Board would have had to publicly disclose those contacts - and give all parties a chance to respond to them - if it had handled the order against Green as a "contested case." Contested cases are treated as mini-trials in which witnesses are sworn in and transcripts of the proceedings are produced.
But the Elections Board treated the case against Green under its administrative rules, as it almost always does. Because of that, the board did not have to notify other parties of the contacts as a matter of course.
Maistelman's contacts became public after the Journal Sentinel obtained the e-mails of Elections Boards members under the state's open records law. Wiley subsequently told reporters about his phone conversation with Elections Board Chairman John Savage.
The Elections Board consists of appointees of politicians and state political parties; critics have said that makeup leads to decisions laced with political calculations. The board voted 5-2 on Aug. 30 to force Green to dump $467,844 in out-of-state political action committee money from his account. All four Democrats and the board's lone Libertarian voted for the order.
A Dane County judge upheld the order last month. Green is now trying to persuade the Supreme Court to take up the case and render a final verdict before the Nov. 7 election.
In one e-mail sent to two board members the day before the vote, Maistelman told them an order against Green would amount to a "PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money."
Wiley said he called Savage before the vote after hearing that Savage believed the vote was likely to go against Green. Wiley said they did not discuss strategy, however.
Jonathan Becker, legal counsel for the Ethics Board, said he believed the contacts with Elections Board members made the public suspicious of their votes. Becker said he was speaking personally and that the Ethics Board had not taken a position on the matter.
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