Elections chairman calls Scott Fitzgerald a coward over Wisconsin senators' efforts to oust top official

MADISON - The head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission called the leader of the state Senate a coward Tuesday and contended senators don't have the power to oust the state's chief elections officer.

Mark Thomsen, the Democratic chairman of the bipartisan commission, said only the commission — and not the Senate — can force Administrator Mike Haas out of his job. Republican senators have promised to reject Haas' confirmation this month, but Thomsen said such a vote would be meaningless and they may need to bring a lawsuit to remove Haas.

"Frankly, he’s a coward," Thomsen said of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau). "I’m hoping there are senators in his party who will stand up to his bully tactics."

Fitzgerald and other GOP senators have said they want to remove Haas because he formerly worked for the disbanded Government Accountability Board and helped craft legal filings defending a John Doe investigation of the campaigns of Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans. The state Supreme Court terminated that investigation in 2015, finding no one had done anything illegal. 

GOP senators also want to force out Brian Bell, the administrator of the state Ethics Commission who also previously worked for the accountability board. 

The commissions, which each consist of three Democrats and three Republicans, have shown unanimous support for Haas and Bell. 

Fitzgerald did not respond to a request for an interview.

Thomsen said Republican lawmakers should respect the commissioners' views on who they want in charge of the elections agency. 

"Today, (Haas) has the unanimous support of the commission that he should be driving this bus for the 2018 election at a time when we know the Russian government is going to be there to try to interfere with our elections," Thomsen said.

Thomsen derided Fitzgerald for planning a vote to reject Haas and Bell on Jan. 23 without holding public hearings.

"The fact that Mr. Fitzgerald wants to fire him without even a hearing after the commission he created asked for a hearing shows just how desperate the leaders of the Republican Party have become," Thomsen said. 

"It looks like he just rammed down a personal vendetta for unknown reasons. ... The fact he won’t even have a hearing shows he’s afraid that the truth will really come out."

He disputed claims by Republican senators that they can remove Haas from office by rejecting his confirmation. Thomsen noted Haas has held the job for a year and a half. By its inaction, the Senate has signed off on him, he said. 

"My read of the statute is absent a majority vote of the commission, he remains interim administrator," Thomsen said. "By allowing him to serve one and a half years, (the senators) have given their advice and consent."

He said in his view, the senators would have to sue to get rid of Haas, but added the commission has not discussed that possibility. 

Republicans control the Senate 18-13 and Fitzgerald has said he has the votes to deny Haas and Bell's confirmations.

But GOP Sen. Luther Olsen of Ripon said he had not yet been persuaded that the two should go. Speaking before Thomsen made his comments, Olsen said he wanted to respect the wishes of the commissioners and would understand if they decided to resign if the Senate second-guessed their staff decisions.

"Who's running the place? The bipartisan board or partisan politicians?" Olsen said in a Friday interview.

The fight over Haas and Bell's future springs from the John Doe investigation that was shut down in 2015, as well as an earlier one that resulted in the convictions of six Walker aides and associates.

The second probe, known as John Doe II, sparked Republican outrage and led them to limit the state's John Doe law, which allows investigations to be conducted before a judge in secret. Republicans also disbanded the accountability board and replaced it with the ethics and elections commissions. 

In 2016, the Guardian U.S. published nearly 1,400 pages of secret documents from John Doe II, including ones showing the Legislature approved a 2013 measure aimed at retroactively shielding paint makers from liability after a billionaire owner of a lead producer contributed $750,000 to a political group that provided crucial support to Republicans in recall elections.

GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel investigated the leak and last month issued a report finding the leak was a crime but that he did not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone. His report detailed the breadth of investigations of Republicans, which included gathering millions of pages of emails and other documents.

In response, leaders of the state Senate authorized GOP Schimel to broaden his investigation into how the John Doe probes of Republicans were conducted and the activities of the accountability board.

Schimel's initial report prompted GOP lawmakers to call for Bell and Haas to step down because of their ties to the accountability board. They declined to do so and Republican senators said they would try to remove them.

Haas was not part of the core team that worked on the John Doe investigations, but reviewed and edited legal filings when John Doe II was challenged in court. Bell was not involved with the John Doe investigations, but Republicans have criticized his handling of the leak investigation.