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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Walker ready to "boldly" politicize elections. Like gerrymandering wasn't enough already?

In my post yesterday, "Scott Walker wants something better than a board of impartial judges overseeing elections," the Cap Times wrote about the latest attempt by Scott Walker and the Republican authority to remake the GAB into something more accountable to them, partisan politicians:

Gov. Scott Walker said on Monday he wants the board dismantled and replaced with something new … "something completely new that is truly accountable to the people of the state of Wisconsin," the Associated Press reported.

Jay Heck, director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said "Walker's call for the elimination of the GAB is simply revenge and retribution for the GAB approving of an investigation of what was clearly a violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law in 2011-12. The elimination or evisceration of the GAB will only raise further questions about whether or not Walker and his campaign were involved in illegal activity. And it will be viewed by citizens as an attempt to simply eliminate any entity that puts adherence to the law above partisan fealty."
But this all started back in December of 2011, nearly one year into Walker term. Republicans were already planning the GAB's demise:
jsonline-Jason Stein: State Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald … said the state might need to replace its elections and ethics agency, saying it has strayed from its nonpartisan mission. Fitzgerald said he saw advantages to going back to the old elections and ethics board … A spokesman for the accountability board said the agency was simply applying the law during controversial political times.
Exactly one year later, in 2012, Republicans were still fine tuning the message:
jsonline-Patrick Marley: The state Senate's incoming leader said Monday he would like to take retired judges off the state's nonpartisan elections and ethics board and replace them with political appointees.Sen. Scott Fitzgerald said he believed the state Government Accountability Board has made decisions favoring Democrats and that putting political appointees on the board would "strike more of a balance." "GAB, it's not working the way it's supposed to," Fitzgerald said. 
Another year later, replacing the GAB came up again, but this time on video, compliments of the propaganda think tank MacIver Institute. Thankfully, when Republicans give interviews to like-minded media lackeys, the filter comes off and they spill their guts. They do know everybody else can see and hear this stuff, right?

This is what I wrote back in January 2, 2013:
Thanks to the farcical, and radically conservative "think tank" MacIver Institute, we have this look inside the thinking behind our winner take all party of failed ideas, from Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. I've added corrections in the video when needed:


In  2012, Rachel Maddow put together this nicely researched look back at how the GAB began in Wisconsin, and the Republicans attempts to take it all back:



Check out this fine article in the New Yorker.

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