A new state ethics and election oversight board elected its top enforcement official Monday, even while taxpayer participation in election reform efforts remains stagnant.

The State Ethics Board and State Elections Board combined to form the Government Accountability Board recently, and appointed Kevin J. Kennedy as chief legal counsel.

Kennedy had previously been the executive director of the State Elections Board.

The GAB was formed to better enforce election laws and make the board more politically independent than the two previous ethics boards, according to Mike McCabe, director of the watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

“The boards just did not consistently enforce our state’s ethics and election laws,” McCabe said. “And lobbying laws, they fell down on the job.”

According to McCabe, there were previously scandals in state politics involving legislative leaders that put political pressure on the two boards, who then ignored the crimes even with the apparent evidence of corruption.

“It sent a message to all participants in our political process that you really don’t have to respect these laws, because nothing’s going to happen to you if you break them,” McCabe said.

The ethics board had to go to a finance committee every time it wanted money for crime investigations, McCabe said.

The new board will have an unlimited budget for investigations and will not have to go through the Legislature, the finance committee or the governor, according to McCabe, making them more independent.

Gov. Jim Doyle spokesperson Carla Vigue said Doyle created the GAB and chose its members, and said he is a strong advocate for ethics reform.

“The board is a very good next step in helping move the ethics reform process forward,” Vigue said.

Taxpayer donations toward public funding of political campaigns is considered by some reformers to decrease corruption in the election process, but participation has dropped dramatically, according to the Appleton Post-Crescent.

Only one out of 20 taxpayers contributed to a campaign grant program for public funding this year, as opposed to 19 percent when the program launched in 1977, APC stated.

Around 147 candidates participated in the program in 1984, and last year only 38 candidates were given checks from the fund, according to the APC.

Jay Heck, executive director of the ethics reform group Common Cause Wisconsin, said the State Elections Board failed to publicize public financing and to make public donations a viable alternative for candidates.