Ethics Commission Stands Down After State Senate Vote To Fire Top Administrator

The Wisconsin Ethics Commission won’t try to re-hire Brian Bell as its top administrator after Republican state senators voted to fire him earlier this week.

“It is up to the Senate to confirm,” said Republican Ethics Commissioner Pat Strachota at the panel’s Thursday meeting. “Unfortunately, they didn’t confirm him.”

The move marked a departure from Wisconsin’s Elections Commission, which re-hired administrator Mike Haas over the adamant objection of the Senate’s top Republican.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, issue a statement on Thursday night praising the Ethics Commission’s decision while attacking the Elections Commission, saying that if the panel didn’t pick a new leader soon, senators would pick one for them.

The Senate voted 18-13 along party lines on Tuesday against confirming both Bell and Haas.

Fitzgerald said neither man could be trusted to run the agencies because of their past work for the Government Accountability Board, which GOP lawmakers voted to disband in 2015 because of its role in an investigation of Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans.

While Fitzgerald contended the Senate’s vote was final, the Elections Commission voted 4-2 on Wednesday to retain Mike Haas as its interim administrator through the end of April.

The Ethics Commission, and Bell himself, took a decidedly different approach.

Ethics commissioners voted 5-1 to keep Bell’s job open. Only Strachota voted no as she voiced concerns that the commission needed to move quickly to search for Bell’s replacement.

Bell returned to his old job on Thursday as a budget policy analyst at the Department of Safety and Professional Services.

Bell earned $92,000 as Wisconsin’s ethics administrator, according to the Wisconsin Department of Administration. He’ll earn $59,197 at the Department of Safety and Professional Services.

“It’s a very sad day for us not having Brian Bell here,” said Ethics Commission Chairman David Halbrooks, a Democrat. “I don’t believe we could have found anyone better.”

Halbrooks decided not to fight the Senate’s action even as he lashed out at Fitzgerald and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat.

Halbrooks took issue with Fitzgerald’s suggestion that Republicans were considering eliminating the jobs of more employees at the Ethics and Elections commissions since they also worked at the now-defunct GAB.

“It is my impression that Sen. Fitzgerald has gone a long way towards cementing his name right alongside Joseph McCarthy in this state,” Halbrooks said. “I think he should consider resigning at this point.”

Halbrooks also said that it was Chisholm who deserved blame for what he viewed as an overreach of the John Doe investigations involving Walker.

“The blame lies with the Milwaukee County district attorney,” Halbrooks said. “The governor has the power to remove John Chisholm, the Assembly has the ability to start impeachment proceedings and the Senate to hear those. If they wanted to get to somebody who actually caused what happened, that’s where they should start.”

Halbrooks, who is an attorney, was granted immunity in one of the investigations.

Spokespersons for Fitzgerald and Chisholm didn’t immediately respond to Halbrooks’ comments Thursday night.

Fitzgerald did release a statement attacking the Elections Commission for reappointing Haas, suggesting the clock was ticking for commissioners to pick a new leader.

“The 45-day window for the commission the select a new administrator has begun,” Fitzgerald said. “If the commission fails to act, the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization must comply with the law and appoint a new administrator.”

The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization is made up of legislative leaders and has a 6-4 Republican majority.

While Haas returned to work at the Elections Commission on Thursday, the Department of Administration said he was now officially staff counsel at the agency, a job that he held at the GAB before he advanced through the ranks. Haas earned a salary of $124,000 before the Senate’s vote to oust him. He now earns $94,161.

Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney said despite the change in title and corresponding reduction in salary, Haas was still running the agency as he had before. His interim appointment ends on April 30.

Some backers of Haas and Bell have suggested they might fight the Senate’s action in court, arguing that only the Ethics and Elections Commissions can hire and fire its administrators, not the Legislature.