By: Brian Sikma

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board has, rightfully, earned the ire of conservatives and liberals, supporters and opponents of various public officials targeted in recall elections. It would seem that the hope that the GAB would fill the role of a competent, unbiased election oversight agency has been firmly demolished over the past year as the unaccountable board of bureaucrats has had to make decisions, set policies, and then reverse itself when confronted with the facts or state law.

Courtesy of the Waukesha Patch

Among the more glaring examples of incompetence is the matter of the recall petitions aimed at forcing a recall of Governor Scott Walker. In a precedent firmly entrenched with last year’s state senate recall elections, the GAB said that it would place PDF copies of all recall petitions from this round of recalls on its website for public inspection. First up where the petitions aimed at four incumbent state senators. To be published late last week or early this week were the petitions aimed at recalling Governor Walker and Lt. Governor Kleefisch.

Then the GAB changed its mind.

After the ACLU of Wisconsin raised concerns about privacy issues, concerns that Media Trackers warned about well before the end of the petition circulation period, the GAB decided to withhold publishing the Walker and Kleefisch petitions. After a weekend and a day of getting called out for this sudden shift in policy, GAB director Kevin Kennedy announced late Tuesday that the petitions would be made public after all.

In his press statement announcing the plan to release the petitions, Kennedy made a comment that perhaps only a government bureaucrat would make. “The electoral process is the means our society has chosen to select leaders, establish public policy and hold public officials accountable . . . .”

After being urged by members of the media, talk show hosts, watchdog and public interest groups, and even the Attorney General, Kennedy had to retreat from the GAB’s decision to keep the petitions secret. But instead of simply saying that transparency in this area was mandated by the simple fact that in a free society there needs to be accountability, instead of standing up for the rights of Wisconsin voters regardless of their political affiliation, Kennedy offered a technocrat’s clinical assessment of the process of self-government.

His line, perhaps little noticed amidst the bigger news that the petitions would be released, is a telltale indicator that perhaps Kennedy, as other bureaucrats, views the electoral process not as a good thing in and of itself, a morally valuable thing, but simply a societal choice. “We do this because society has told us to.”

When bureaucrats express frustration or even a disinterest in boldly defending the idea of self-government because it happens to disrupt their original plans, it’s usually a sign that their usefulness at their task is becoming more and more limited in value.