Ethics Board gets its dander up

This might be the toughest thing the State Ethics Board has ever said, in an exchange reported in the WisPolitics Report to subscribers:

It is logic-defying, incumbent-protecting decisions like this that have led many, including myself, to call for the dissolution of the Ethics Board and the creation of a new entity to monitor elections and elected officials.

-- Republican candidate for attorney general J.B. Van Hollen, after the Ethics Board unanimously cleared AG Peg Lautenschlager of wrongdoing in the TAP Pharmaceuticals lawsuit settlement. She had given a $50,000 from the settlement to Wisconsin Citizen Action.

It is disturbing that a candidate for attorney general, in order to jockey for a political advantage, would want a government agency to ignore the facts and misapply the law.

-- The Ethics Board’s response to Van Hollen.