UPDATED: Targeted for extermination by Walker, GAB audit found no problems and no reason to destroy nonpartisan election oversight.

Despite all the trouble Gov. Scott Walker had as chairman of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (he was booted for lost and forgotten money), it's now on the fast track to become less unaccountable with even less oversight.

The Government Accountability Board on the other hand, overseeing elections and investigating election wrong doing (catching a few Republicans and nearly Scott Walker), is on the chopping block and about to become a political arm of the administration. Republicans took a few audit problems and went into phony outrage mode.

In this jaw dropping WPT Here and Now interview, Republican State Sen. Devin LeMahieu thought nothing of admitting the parties bizarre and vengeful intentions. This will instill more confidence in out elections?



Common Cause wrote this:

Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos particularly despise the fact that the six retired judges that comprise the GAB voted unanimously in 2012 to authorize an investigation into possible illegal campaign coordination between Scott Walker's campaign during the recall election, with outside special interest groups (Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce) … such coordination was very clear at that time and the GAB decision was completely in accordance with established law. 

What really irks Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos is that the GAB is not controlled by them and has not done their bidding. And so now, this Fall, the Republican majority will move in September to eviscerate the independence and non-partisanship of the GAB and attempt to ram through their own legislation that will make the GAB a partisan tool firmly under their control. In doing so, the GOP will seek to dictate the outcome of Wisconsin elections, campaign finance law, ethics and lobbying law and manipulate it in such a way that they will gain permanent political power and control in the clean, honest, accountable and nationally-admired state formerly known as Wisconsin.

GAB Director Kevin Kennedy addressed many of the phony issues LeMahieu mentioned above on WKOW's Capitol City Sunday:



But that was then, this is now, and they lost their reason for change. WKOW:

An audit released Thursday looking into how Wisconsin's nonpartisan elections and ethics board, the GAB, handles complaints found no major problems, leading the panel's director to say it should put to rest concerns about its operations even as Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker plan major overhauls. The report shows that the six retired judges on the board are engaged as they review material presented by staff. Republicans who control the Legislature along with Walker, who is running for president, have said for months they plan to make significant changes to the board, including possibly doing away with it and starting over.