The chair of a committee named to consider the fate of state Representative Jeff Wood promises a deliberative process. While one member of the state Assembly was expelled during World War One, this marks the first time a Special Committee on Ethics and Standards of Conduct has been formed, under a rule first adopted in 1989. Committee chair, Rice Like Democrat Mary Hubler, says that rule spells out the process.
“All due process requires him to be able to have the opportunity to be at this committee,” says Hubler. “We will begin next Wednesday, but it will be some time, I think, before we get to the actual charges, and Representative Wood ever appearing before that committee.”
AUDIO: Bob Hague interview w/Rep. Hubler
Hubler says it’s important that the actions involving the expulsion motion against Wood be deliberative. “This is groundbreaking. This is a new rule – well, twenty year-old rule – that has never been used, and I want to make sure that we do it right, because this is going to the foundation that future legislatures look to, the process that we use and set up.”
Republican Representative Steve Nass of Whitewater introduced the expulsion motion after Wood, an Independent from Bloomer was stopped for OWI for a third time in less than a year. Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan named the six member committee this week.
