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Deininger takes lead role
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MONROE - Former Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge David Deininger was selected Jan. 21 to chair the Government Accountability Board.

Deininger was appointed to the board in June.

The board is a combination of the State Ethics and State Elections boards. The board will have two divisions, an Ethics and Accountability Division and an Elections Division.

The former has the responsibility for administering campaign financing, lobbying and ethics laws. The latter has the responsibility for the administration of elections laws.

The board plans to examine all rules for the Ethics and Elections boards and determine which should be retained, modified and eliminated.

The board's goal is to make sure state government operates within ethical boundaries. The board also will try to win back the trust of a public that has been turned off by numerous political scandals.

"We want to maintain a reputation of clean, open government that the state used to have," Deininger said when he was nominated for the board in June. "Our end goal is to restore citizen confidence, public confidence in the system."

Because of his new responsibilities as board chairman, Deininger stepped down as a member of the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee (WJCIC), which organized in December to ensure judges campaign in accordance with the code of judicial conduct.

"I do not feel I can devote the necessary time and attention to the work of the WJCIC which I fully support and which will likely increase as the Supreme Court campaigns become more active," Deininger told the WJCIC.

Deininger served as a judge for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals since 1996 until last year. He was Green County Circuit Court Judge from 1994 to 1996 and represented Green County in the Wisconsin Assembly from 1987 to 1994.