Assembly Speaker Says He’s ‘Open’ To Replacing GAB With Partisan Elections Board

The Republican speaker of the state Assembly says he’s open to reverting to a partisan elections board to replace the state’s Government Accountability Board.

Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, known as the GAB, is composed of six former judges. It was created in 2007 to be as nonpartisan as possible, replacing an elections board where decisions were made by partisan appointees.

Up until recently, Speaker Robin Vos had said only that he wanted to replace the staff at the GAB, while Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he wanted to move to a partisan board. Now, Vos said he’s open to Fitzgerald’s idea.

“I’m open to anything that’s going to work, but I don’t want to create a system where deadlock occurs and decisions are not made,” said Vos. “So if we can create a system that has partisan makeup where decisions can be made, of course I’m open to that.”

Vos made his comments after an audit found the GAB was slow to perform some of the duties required of it by law.