Doyle's on fire again

Having spent the morning semi-comatose, I'm late to the story, but imagine my surprise when I weaved down the stairs this morning and found that my daily newspaper was sitting on the counter with smoke pouring from its pages.

The Dem spin on the Election Board's ruling that Green could not transfer legally raised federal money to his state account was that the Board "found this" as if the SEB were a Council of impartial elders, furrowing brows and contemplating the truth.

If that were the case - if the SEB was acting as an impartial tribunal - it would not be permissible to ex parte its members. If I call a judge (in the absence of the other side) and ask for a little love on a pending motion, I will soon become intimately acquainted with the Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Nor could I ask a judge to find in my favor because it will be a PR victory for my side and force my opponents to spend money. A lawyer may not take a position to harass or delay.

If its OK to contact the SEB on a pending matter, it is because it is acting in a quasi-legislative capacity. Legislators don't "find" things, they vote on them. Its an exercise of power and the one with the most votes wins. In this case, Democrat partisans had the votes to stick it to Green and they did so.

That may be legal but is it is hardly scandalous for the losing side.

Of course, apart from the legality, this looks awful. Here's Maistelman carefully circumventing the open meetings laws and telling these intrepid seekers of truth what the "powers that be" had deemed acceptable. Here he is again telling them that they can tie Green up in the courts and make him look bad.

The Journal Sentinel says Maistelman denied that he was representing Doyle at the hearing. What is that about? Did he just remember? Or did he think he could take off his lawyer hat and disavow his client when he entered the hearing room?

You can't blame Doyle for denying that he knew about this. But how plausible is that? Was he really indifferent to the matter before the SEB? And, if he was briefed on it, wouldn't one of the first items of conversation be that they had retained counsel.