| By Cory @ One Wisconsin Now - Nov 17th, 2008 at 3:45 pm EST |
Categories: Ethical Government, Electoral Reform, Voter Rights, One Wisconsin Now - The "tOWN Hall"
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s partisan lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB) endangered the right to vote for scores of Wisconsinites. It also forced taxpayers to pay the bill coming and going. Thanks to J.B. we had to pay for both filing the frivolous lawsuit and for defending against it. Now we find out that it may have cost the state in a few other ways.
Over the weekend the Associated Press reported that two assistant attorneys general told Van Hollen’s top aide that they were close to reaching a favorable settlement on cases in which they were representing the GAB. They also advised him that filing Van Hollen’s suit against the GAB would derail their progress in the matter saying:
However, as I also indicated, there is virtually no likelihood of exploring, much less settling, these cases if this office files an action against GAB ... If such a filing is in the offing, you need to know this.
Not only was the partisan suit “in the offing” but Van Hollen actually filed it a very short time after being warned about the consequences that it would have on his office’s defense of the GAB in other cases.
Thankfully Van Hollen’s partisan lawsuit was thrown out of court before it was allowed to disenfranchise Wisconsin voters in an election that by all accounts ran very smoothly. Unfortunately, there still were other casualties of his partisan lawsuit: taxpayer dollars and important cases where he should have been focused on defending the State of Wisconsin not suing it.
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