Gov. Doyle defended himself and his administration over the weekend in the face of an inquiry into the awarding of a travel contract to Adelman Travel Group earlier this year.
Doyle came under scrutiny after media reports revealed he had received $20,000 in contributions from Adelman officials, but the governor stressed that there was no impropriety.
'Although I was not personally involved in the decision, I feel confident that the review will find that nothing inappropriate was done,' Doyle said in a statement. 'The contract was awarded to the lowest bidder, saving taxpayers $30,000.'
Republican officials said they applauded the decision to examine the process by which Adelman won the contract.
'The circumstances are serious enough to warrant a thorough probe of the matter,' Chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin Rick Graber said in a statement. 'The details that have been revealed on how this contract was awarded suggest unfair pay-to-play tactics.'
Doyle rejected calls Friday to rebid the contract. He said that because the contract was decided according to the rules, it would be against regulations to redo it at this point.
The U.S. attorney's office, the FBI, the Dane County district attorney and the office of the state attorney general are jointly running the investigation.
Doyle's possible challengers in the 2006 gubernatorial election weighed in with criticism of the deal. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker called for reforms in state government that would disallow contributions to authority figures that have final say over contract decisions.
'Jim Doyle's own version of pay-to-play is yet another example of how this administration has failed the integrity test and the people of Wisconsin,' Walker said in a statement. 'We need a lean and clean state government.'
Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Steve Bablitch said in a statement that the governor's office had done nothing wrong.
'The state's travel contracts were awarded using an objective and unbiased process'a process that is followed every time the state conducts a procurement using the 'requests for proposal' procedure,' Bablitch said.
