In response to a shaky period of scandalized politics, the state's Joint Finance Committee approved an initiative Wednesday aimed at combating recent evidence of Wisconsin citizens' overwhelming distrust of its public officials.

The committee, in a vote of 13 to 3, decided to approve Senate Bill 1, a measure that would create a Government Accountability Board by combining the state's existing Ethics and Elections boards along with a newly devised enforcement division.

"SB 1 would strengthen the Ethics Board and the Elections Board and give [the combined board] enforcement powers [to prosecute state officials]," Common Cause in Wisconsin Executive Director Jay Heck said.

Though drafted in 2003, SB 1 is receiving renewed attention following a number of instances of questionable campaign-finance practices by politicians in the state. The bill was written partially in response to the Legislative Caucus Scandal that erupted in 2002, in which several state legislators were indicted on charges of misusing their public offices to raise campaign funds. As a result, former State Sen. Brian Burke, D-Milwaukee, and former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, D-Madison, pled guilty to reduced charges in court after striking plea deals with prosecutors. Current Rep. Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha, and former Rep. Steve Foti, R-Oconomowoc, were also charged with campaign-finance crimes and will face trials in early 2006. Jensen, whose trial date is set for February, voted in support of the initiative in committee Wednesday.

"It's important to send the message to the public that the Legislature is serious about cracking down on misconduct," Mike Prentiss, spokesperson for Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said.

Fitzgerald, also a co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, voted in favor of the bill.

According to the bill, the Accountability Board would consist of four nonpartisan government-appointed members nominated by a panel consisting of the Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice and law school deans from UW-Madison and Marquette University.

In the case of questionable Legislative activity, the new enforcement division would be authorized to initiate an investigation and present the case before the entire board, which would have to approve the investigation in a three-quarters vote before the prosecution could go forward.

Bill supporters maintain a restructuring of state boards is necessary because of the damaging effects of the weak enforcement powers currently afforded to the nonpartisan Ethics Board and the politically representative Elections Board.

"There is a crisis in confidence in the government. It doesn't mean we think the current boards have necessarily failed," Mike Boerger, spokesperson for bill author Sen. Michael Ellis, R-Neenah, said.

Boerger added while in some regards wrongdoing "was occurring right under their nose[s]," in others "they were almost set up to fail".

Under current law, legal proceedings are handled by elected district attorneys, a principle many Democrats defend as the only responsible way to prosecute legal offenders.

"This is a lot of political grandstanding at the expense of real democratic principles we hold dear in this country," State Rep. Pedro Col?n, D-Milwaukee, said, adding the adoption of SB 1 would essentially mean the privatization of prosecution.

Conversely, according to the bill's supporters, adding such a union would battle the political scandal currently rocking Wisconsin government by removing partisanship influence from prosecutions.

"This merger would help the new Government Accountability Board ensure a clean and open government, allow for greater enforcement power in overseeing elections and help to ensure the integrity of our election system," Gov. Jim Doyle, a key backer of SB 1, said in a release.

Col?n, however, foresees the initiative as a measure that fails to serve the public while actually promoting partisan politics.

"This bill should be called the Partisan Ethics Lawyer Employment Act," Col?n said, pointing to the likelihood of partisan nominations and appointments.

However, according to Boerger, such a presumption of the possibility of reckless prosecution is "tak[ing] it to the extreme" and a "myopic" over-analysis generated out of worry over what could potentially happen to legislators themselves.

SB 1 is scheduled for a Senate vote next Tuesday.