Many people hailed the creation of a new and presumably stronger state watchdog agency to ensure ethical behavior by public officials. We now find that the dog has a muzzle and is tied with a strong chain.

When the board was created by the Legislature - one observer quoted in news reports said that body was driven by embarrassment over the convictions of former legislators - its ability to look back in time was limited to three years. District attorneys have a six-year window. And the board has concluded that it can't look back into the time when its predecessor agency existed, which was just a few months ago.

That means it can't investigate allegations that newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman had improperly used his state telephone line to call political operatives while he was Ashland County district attorney and just before he hosted a fundraiser for former Gov. Scott McCallum, who later appointed him to be a circuit judge.

These are mistakes, or maybe they weren't. Maybe the limits serve the interests of many people who don't want their political

closets investigated.

In any case, this is something which the Legislature should set about fixing when it reconvenes in January. It should at least give the board the same six-year window which district attorneys have because it can take years before documents come to light or witnesses work up the nerve to give evidence.

With the ethical problems of Justice Anette Ziegler and the allegations against Gableman, the state Supreme Court is starting to smell like the Legislature. Yet justices are elected for

10-year terms, meaning the new board's authority to investigate wouldn't cover a whole term. It wouldn't even be able to cover the whole term, from election to election, of state senators. They are elected for four years.

Wisconsin has always had a reputation as a progressive state and one where government is clean. The campaign caucus scandals of a few years ago tarnished that reputation. The Legislature's creation of the new accountability board has unfortunately done nothing to polish that reputation.