MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – A Wisconsin Senate committee has endorsed a bill to prohibit secret John Doe investigations for political crimes.
Majority Republicans on the judiciary panel pushed the bill through Thursday on a 3-2 vote.
But Senate GOP leader Scott Fitzgerald’s office is not sure when the full upper house will take it up. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he wants to wait until after the State Supreme Court rules on three cases involving the validity of the ongoing John Doe probe into the recall election campaigns of Governor Scott Walker and GOP senators.
Some Republicans feel Walker was unfairly stung by the length and depth of the nearly three-year-old probe.
The new bill would still allow prosecutors to investigate political campaign-related crimes using other methods, including a seldom-used grand jury process. But John Does would be prohibited in those cases, and similar probes for other crimes would have new time limits of up to a year.
The Walker John Doe is being held up pending the Supreme Court rulings. The justices will hold hearings in those cases April 17th and 20th, and attorneys who are trying to shut down the probe have asked that the hearings not be open to the public.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
