Ethics board chair is a politician's dream

If you're a politician who likes to push the limits on campaign and ethics laws -- or who might even go over the line now and then -- I've got the Ethics Board chairman of your dreams.

His name is John Carter, and he's the chair of the Milwaukee County Ethics Board. In that capacity, Carter has found that County Executive Scott Walker can do no wrong.

Walker takes campaign contributions from executives of a company that gets a no-bid county contract? No problem, says Carter -- even after Walker's campaign decided to return some of the contributions because they violated a county rule.

The AP reported:

John Carter, the chairman of the county Ethics Board and a lawyer, said the code clause in question does not apply because Walker is running for governor, not a county position.

In any case, the total sum of donations of $2,375 from Phoenix executives to the Friends of Scott Walker campaign from 2002 to 2005 did not seem large enough to be judged to be influence-peddling, he said.

"If we are looking at someone who gave $2,000 to his campaign for governor and they subsequently ended up with a contract, to me, that really doesn't mean very much,'' Carter said.

Carter gave no indication what amount would "mean very much."

Earlier this year, it was Carter and his ethics board who provided the whitewash for Walker's motorcycle trip around the state, at taxpayer expense, to give away free tickets worth $19,000. The trip was a campaign trip barely disguised as a tourism promotion.

But Carter gave it his seal of approval.

As I reported earlier:

Walker says everything is fine and has been approved by the county ethics board. Well, I haven't seen this year's letter, but the one in 2004 from John J. Carter, chair of the board, starts by telling Walker, "You have determined this tour to be county business," then goes on to say it's all fine to use taxpayer money, take staff along, and have a jolly good time. If you start from the premise that Walker gets to decide what is county business and what is campaign, it's pretty easy to see how Carter reached his conclusion

Maybe Carter has successfully developed what the nuns used to call a "lax conscience." That's when you're about to do something wrong, but have beaten your conscience down to the point that it doesn't set off any alarms. To the chair of the county ethics board, nothing seems unethical.