The misnamed WI Government Accountability Board is taking up the issue of who shall be allowed to challenge recall signatures, even as this is written. It seems that Kevin Kennedy, head of GAB wants to limit the ability to challenge to those who submitted the recall signatures, and those being recalled. He wants to disallow challenges by independent people and groups, such as the Grandsons of Liberty, and We the People of the Republic who have done much to analyze the signatures. It is hard to imagine a proposal more absurd. This is like only allowing the robber and the owner of the bank to testify as to what happened during a bank robbery, and to disregard evidence presented by the police as well as eye witnesses to the robbery.

Why not just waive the signature requirements altogether? If there is to be no integrity to the process, that is essentially what the GAB would do if they rule in favor of this proposal. It seems the GAB is more interested in protecting those who committed fraud in the collection of the signatures than protecting the elected officials from fraud. Once again, GAB, your partisanship is showing.

Given the obvious partisanship of the GAB, given the lack of concern for the integrity of the process, given their lack of respect for the rule of law, I would like to see members brought to task individually for their malfeasance of office. If what they are doing is not criminal, it should be, and they should be individually liable for their misbehavior. The GAB is increasingly a bad joke, and should be replaced.

Here is a novel idea, why do we not go to a system where each political party appoints a portion of the board? That way the interests of the two major parties offset each other, and rampant partisanship has some check on it. In other words, go back to the system we had before the old Elections Board was abandoned in favor of the present, putatively non-partisan GAB which has shown itself to be anything BUT non-partisan. On change I would make though, in recognition of the fact that independents outnumber members of either political party, is that a portion of the board should not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans.

Here is a link to a story regarding the subject of this opinion piece:

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120207/GPG0101/202070466/G...