It’s too early to tell if this is the greatest Wisconsin Assembly committee of all time, but the Government Oversight, Accountability and Transparency panel sure has the acronym for it.
GOAT was created by Speaker Robin Vos, who hasn’t said why he chose the Internet-famous acronym for unrivaled excellence. Neither a Vos spokesperson nor the committee chair, Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie), responded to requests for comment.
Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine), a panel member, finds the name ironic. Instead of promoting efficiency and transparency, Cruz says GOAT duplicates the work of the Joint Audit Committee and the Legislative Audit Bureau while distracting voters from substantive policy.
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Vos has said he modeled GOAT after DOGE, President Donald Trump’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency, which was led by billionaire Elon Musk until their recent and spectacular split. But while DOGE’s chaotic slashing of federal spending and staffing has raised myriad legal questions and lacked transparency, GOAT follows normal rules for elected legislators holding public hearings. Any of its recommendations would require approval by the full Assembly, Senate and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to become law.
Cruz says the similarity that she sees between GOAT and DOGE is that both “have the stated objective to find accountability and efficiency,” but “in practice at either level, it seems quite the opposite.”
For example, DOGE has largely ignored billions of dollars in actual waste and fraud identified by federal agencies’ independent inspectors general – many of whom were fired by Trump – and the congressional General Accountability Office, instead chopping legally authorized programs that Trump and his fellow Republicans consider ideologically unpalatable.
In that regard, both DOGE and GOAT are targeting spending on diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump’s administration is trying to wipe out all such programs, both within the federal government itself and in organizations that receive federal funding, claiming that efforts to end discrimination are themselves discriminatory.
Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), the GOAT committee’s vice chair, has asked dozens of local governments for information on their DEI programs, even though such efforts were curtailed by Act 12, the 2023 legislation that overhauled shared revenue and boosted Milwaukee city and county sales tax powers while also limiting how tax dollars could be spent.
And just as DOGE has instigated mass firings of federal workers, Cruz, a teachers union leader, accuses GOAT of conducting a “witch hunt” to “discredit public employees,” starting by focusing its first hearing on remote work.
DOGE comparisons aside, the GOAT name resembles that of the Government Accountability Board, a nonpartisan ethics and elections body that was hailed as a national model when it was created by bipartisan consensus in 2007, after Republicans complained one of its predecessors, the bipartisan state Elections Board, was biased against them.
But the GAB isn’t gabbing anymore, because Republicans didn’t like what it had to say. Claiming the board also was biased against Republicans, the GOP-led Legislature split it back into separate bipartisan elections and ethics commissions in 2016.
Within a few years, however, some Republicans were accusing the Elections Commission of anti-GOP bias as well. They introduced a bill seeking to dissolve the commission and transfer election administration to the partisan secretary of state, similar to most other states. That legislation died in committee last year.
