The end of open records in Wisconsin
July 2, 2015 10:07 PM   Subscribe

Nearly all records created by state and local government officials, including bill drafts and communications with staff, would not be subject to the Wisconsin open records law under a sweeping surprise change Republicans introduced in committee Thursday as an amendment to the state budget.

The change is part of JFC 999, introduced in this afternoon's session of the Joint Finance Committee, in sections 27-32, tucked in between a provision about deadlines for group health coverage and a statue barring the state from adopting strict CDC guidelines for lead in paint. Opposition to the move has been swift, including an unlikely alliance between liberal Democrat Jon Erpenbach and the MacIver Institute, "the free market voice for Wisconsin," which sued Erpenbach last year to force disclosure of some of his records.
posted by escabeche (43 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Is Wisconsin trying to steal South Carolina's motto? ("Too small to be a country, too big to be an insane asylum.") It's becoming a parody of a democratic state.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:16 PM on July 2, 2015 [16 favorites]


Wisconsin: Come and Smell Our Dairy Air
posted by infinitewindow at 10:18 PM on July 2, 2015 [23 favorites]


I mean, if they don't want to be embarrassed by leaked communications, they should stop doing embarrassing things. Sheesh.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:18 PM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


"...a statue barring the state from adopting strict CDC guidelines for lead in paint."

I know this isn't even the actual thing here but what the fuck is wrong with people???
posted by Hairy Lobster at 10:18 PM on July 2, 2015 [43 favorites]


It's funny how Republicans hate government overreach. Except in those times and places where they're in control. It never even occurs to them that government is supposed to be based on consistent principles, or even that this moment doesn't last, because no moment ever does.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:20 PM on July 2, 2015 [27 favorites]


Kansas, Wisconsin, and __________ ?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:26 PM on July 2, 2015


This Week in Walkerstan
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:34 PM on July 2, 2015 [7 favorites]




Sadly, @George_Spiggott, I think the Republican behavior is somewhat consistent. In their view, government is bad, and when they're in power, they govern badly.

In the case of Wisconsin, I'm just embarrassed for the entire state. I don't understand how they elected Walker in the first place, and how they didn't dump him when they had the chance. He's leaving a mess that Wisconsin will be cleaning up for years and years, *and* they'll keep discovering more awfulness along the way.
posted by Jefffurry at 11:26 PM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


JFC 999

Funny enough, I was going to say Jesus Fucking Christ.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:29 PM on July 2, 2015 [8 favorites]


This is terrible. Thanks for posting.
posted by chapps at 11:35 PM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Vote, people. It's the easiest way to avoid crap like this in your own state.
posted by notyou at 12:04 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


Smart move for Walker. This one embarrassment now will prevent any more embarrassing disclosures for the rest of his campaign for President.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:47 AM on July 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wisconsin was long the land of good governance by sensible upper Midwesterners. (These are my peeps!). It's so tragic what movement conservatism has done to that marvelous state.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:08 AM on July 3, 2015 [13 favorites]


Except it's not an embarrassment because the people of Wisconsin made it clear several times that this is what they want. Unless all those elections were massively rigged, which could be. But still this is as embarrassing as a 2 year old running around naked, the kid doesn't care and is fine with it.
posted by bleep at 1:10 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]




It's not clear that they are fine with it. Walker won in off-year elections. I do think they made clear they didn't want to recall him.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:13 AM on July 3, 2015


notyou: Vote, people. It's the easiest way to avoid crap like this in your own state.
Wisconsin may be past the point where the majority vote matters anymore. The GOP is better funded, the districts are gerrymandered to give the GOP minority the majority of control, and new voter suppression laws take effect in 2016 (which will likely strengthen the GOP further).*
Wisconsin's "Shameful" Gerrymander of 2012: Wisconsin was one of five states where the party that won more than half of the votes for Congress got fewer than half of the seats. Largely because of redistricting, Republicans in Wisconsin received just 49 percent of the 2.9 million votes cast in the state's congressional races, but won five out of eight seats, or 62.5 percent. And that redistricting process was carried out with a nearly unprecedented level of secrecy and obfuscation.

NYT: Republicans outspend Democrats $45.6 million to $17.9 million in recall race. Gov. Scott Walker has spent the most money, partly as a result of a state law that exempted him from contribution limits until the recall election was formally announced in March.

Scott Walker wins Wisconsin recall election, June 2012.

SCOTUS rejects challenge to Wisconsin voter ID law, March 23, 2015.
The voter ID laws will likely shave another 300,000 voters (12.5% of turnout) off the rolls in Wisconsin, the majority of whom are Democratic voters (poor, young, minority, etc.).

If people think the laws that Walker and the state GOP have passed are bad, one can only imagine the horrible and possibly illegal things they contemplated in closed sessions. No wonder they don't want records made public.

This law, if it passes, will be like Nixon's 18 1/2 minutes of missing tape times ten to the power of a Midnight Massacre, all Borked up into one.

* The 7th Circuit Court vote was tied 5-5, in what should have been an 11 judge panel. President Obama nominated a judge in 2010 to fill the vacant seat, but Republicans have blocked all efforts to fill the seat since; it has been vacant for 5 years running. The SCOTUS declined to review the issue. Unsurprisingly, the Wisconsin GOP won't lift a finger to inform people they need IDs, yet alone provide the DMV with the necessary funds to provide them. Details here.

If things don't turn around dramatically, and soon, the Wisconsin GOP may well emerge from the 2016 election stronger than ever.
posted by Davenhill at 1:39 AM on July 3, 2015 [35 favorites]


Smart move for Walker. This one embarrassment now will prevent any more embarrassing disclosures for the rest of his campaign for President.

This won't even be an embarrassment for Walker; just one little thing buried in news stories about the budget "compromise" (between Republicans and insane Republicans) amidst GOP-red-meat crap like --
  • "Less" borrowing for roads (because who cares about infrastructure?)
  • Killing prevailing wage (a.k.a. "fuck the unions" and "fuck the working class")
  • No public stadium funding.
There isn't a Republican in the country who will vote against him because of transparency, and all he (thinks he) needs to do to win the White House is win the nomination.
posted by Etrigan at 4:48 AM on July 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


In response to Jefffurry's question about how they keep electing Walker, having grown up in rural Wisconsin, it's pretty easy to see. There are really two cultures in Wisconsin, the Madison (and to a lesser extent Milwaukee) culture and the rest of the state, which is made up of 'business people' (think the Fox Valley where you have a lot of people who own small to medium sized businesses) and then the blue collar workers in the suburbs and the rural families out on the farms.

Walker said exactly what that half of the state wanted to hear. He told the business groups that he would cut taxes and reduce their regulatory burden and he told the blue collar and rural farming families that he would also cut their taxes and he would go after cultural issues they felt were important.

The problem is that he then sold them all out, which is why the gerrymandering was necessary. That's a lot of democratic votes for a place like Wisconsin (outside of Madison and Milwaukee) and the recall was close. If everyone was 100% comfortable with what he's doing he would have to pull all the shady stuff he does.

That because the same 'business people' and rural families also care about education funding, health care and conservation (however you feel about hunting, most hunters feel pretty strongly about protecting the environment from a conservation perspective). And everyone cares about jobs, and he's hurt his base the most on that topic.

Oh, and there's also the fact that in the rest of Wisconsin, a lot of the voters are elderly. They get their information from the local papers (which are almost all owned by one company now, if you want to think about something scary...) or from fliers they get in the mail. A lot of political groups, like the ones supporting Walker, will send 'surveys' to the elderly and then when they respond will send them a literal avalanche of misinformation and requests for money. And if you don't have the Internet and can't get around very well, figuring out what's true and what's not is really, really hard in that situation.

So don't blame the people voting for him too much, he told them what they wanted to hear, and given his recent behavior, a lot of them don't want him to be elected again, it's just that a lot of stuff has been done that makes it hard to get rid of him and the rest of them at this point or they have no way to filter information.
posted by scififan at 4:53 AM on July 3, 2015 [15 favorites]


Open records laws always have some exemptions that are going to vary by jurisdiction. For example, you aren't going to be able to use an open records law to get access to something that Federal law makes confidential. (Summary of open records laws for all states)

I read the budget note. If you are interested in the actual changes, read items 28 and 29, beginning at the bottom of page 9. For reference, the Wisconsin AG has produced an 81 page guide to their current open records law, which includes the actual statute, and a lot of guidance about how to comply with it.

In this case, my layman's interpretation is that the main things they are doing is (a) making the legislative branch of government exempt from the Wisconsin Open Records act (item 29), and (b) making "deliberative materials" exempt (item 28). Deliberative materials is defined as "opinions, analysis, briefings, background information, recommendations [...] reaching a decision on a policy or course of action [...]".

I'll make a couple of observations based on my state (not Wisconsin).

First of all, when we've modified our open records act, it was a really big deal and became a year long process, mainly because people were worried about these kinds of shenanigans. In the end, the law was changed in only minor ways after much discussion.

Second, exempting the legislature isn't unprecedented. In my state, they've always been exempted from the open records act. As long as the actual legislative process is still considered an open meeting and the public can see what is going on, there will still be a decent amount of transparency. What you won't be able to see is some of the interactions about how a bill gets started, how it changes, why someone voted the way they did, and where it comes from.

Third, the "deliberative materials" exemption looks to be defined in a very broad way that would apply to all branches. I could conceivably see it applying to leadership in each state agency - that virtually everything they do could be considered deliberative materials. Cynically speaking, that is just as much of a problem for the legislature as it is the public (it isn't unheard of in my state for legislators to serve agency heads with open records requests to try and figure out what is going on).
posted by BlueTongueLizard at 5:13 AM on July 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


Vote, people. It's the easiest way to avoid crap like this in your own state.

What Davenhill said. Just enough people in Wisconsin voted. Twice. For this motherfucker. They also voted for Sam Brownback, in Kansas. Twice. The list goes on. On this logic, voting is actually the easiest way to bring crap like this to your own state, unless your state is gerrymandered enough in the other direction to keep these types out.

I'm not advocating not voting, but the simple nostrum "Vote!" is not as easy as it sounds.
posted by blucevalo at 6:03 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


Aren't the republicans the ones who are always screaming about accountability?
posted by schmod at 6:21 AM on July 3, 2015


I don't understand how they elected Walker in the first place, and how they didn't dump him when they had the chance.

He said he would fuck over black people and he did.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:13 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just enough people in Wisconsin voted. Twice. For this motherfucker.... the simple nostrum "Vote!" is not as easy as it sounds.

The key in that is just enough. Scott Walker got 1.25M votes in 2014, when he was a known quantity. Mary Burke, his opponent, got 1.12M. In 2012, Barack Obama got 1.62M votes in Wisconsin (Mitt Romney got 1.41M). If everyone who voted in 2012 had voted in 2014, Scott Walker would be a one-term Governor hanging around Santorum at the bottom of the polls.

Voter turnout is the key to large-scale Democratic victories. That is the single reason that Republicans push voter ID laws -- they disenfranchise more reliably Democratic voters.
posted by Etrigan at 7:16 AM on July 3, 2015 [9 favorites]


hanging around Santorum at the bottom

Phrasing!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:41 AM on July 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


posted by feckless fecal fear mongering

Eponyfrothical.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:44 AM on July 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


It's really depressing living in Wisconsin right now. We've long been a purple state with a bit of a blue lean, but secretive gerrymandering means that in the last election cycle, Republican state legislators won less than half the statewide votes, but got a majority of the open seats. And the spirit of no-holds-barred, reactionary activism has been proceeding on every front. The slashing of the University of Wisconsin's budget and removal of tenure have gotten national attention, as this attack on freedom of information is now receiving. But look at just a few of the other provisions that have shown up in the budget bill with almost no public discussion:

*Requiring more logging in state forests, and less state financial support for parks.

*Income tax cuts aimed at Wisconsin's wealthy.

*A ban on abortion after 20 weeks.

*Deep reductions in the qualifications required to teach grades 6-12.

*Forbidding longterm contracts for University employees who are not professors, such as lecturers and lab techs and administrative assistants.

*Limits on county environmental regulations that are stricter than the state's.

It's possible that Walker has damaged his reputation enough with moderate state Republican voters who now see him as acting too radically, as he prioritizes establishing a reputation as the most "true" conservative among the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination over the needs of the state, that this term will be the end of his tenure as governor. But the aftermath of these Walker years and the gerrymandering and retraction of accountability is going to last a very long time. Like I said, depressing.
posted by DrMew at 11:32 AM on July 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


Not only all of that, but the Wisconsin Republicans LIKE lead paint?
posted by tommyD at 11:38 AM on July 3, 2015


At some point, bolstered by what they consider an unassailable perversion of the electoral system and the castration of public oversight, the Wisconsin GOP is going to feel as if they're untouchable and start to do things that are absolutely no-pretending-otherwise illegal and corrupt. Because that's what happens. You'll get attempts to make journalism illegal around that point, and it's where - one hopes - someone will dig in and come up with the smoking gun/steaming turd/evidence good enough for the FBI.

Lots of damage done by that point, but still. That's as positive as I can be.
posted by Devonian at 12:50 PM on July 3, 2015


Wisconsin: what would Jesus Mr. Burns do?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 1:08 PM on July 3, 2015


And now the GOP is refusing to say who put records evisceration in the budget.

The attack on UW is particularly terrible, as it's such an amazing public institution.

I'm actually looking forward to the campaign, as Rick Perry will look like a chaired UW professor next to Walker.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:56 PM on July 3, 2015


It's possible that Walker has damaged his reputation enough with moderate state Republican voters who now see him as acting too radically...

Is he really acting more radically than he was before the last two elections he won, though?

(Legit question there -- I'm in a (barely) neighboring state and don't follow him as closely as you probably do.)
posted by Etrigan at 3:06 PM on July 3, 2015


Is he really acting more radically than he was before the last two elections he won, though?

Yes, I think there's a general perception among people here in Wisconsin, including Republicans, that the governor has his eye on primary voters in states more conservative than this one. Walker previously said he had no interest in putting down private-sector unions and said he didn't want to see a right-to-work bill come to his desk. That changed this term.
posted by escabeche at 3:16 PM on July 3, 2015


However, while the legislature passed the open records change on a party-line vote, the AG has now come against it, and there is enough bipartisan opposition that the governor really may not be able to sign off on it. At this point, no one is even willing to admit to being the person who put the language in the bill!
posted by escabeche at 3:18 PM on July 3, 2015


Michigan is going to Republican Hell In A Handbasket as well.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:28 PM on July 3, 2015


there is enough bipartisan opposition that the governor really may not be able to sign off on it.

You say that like Scott Walker has shame, he'll sign whatever Koch funded bill his bosses put on his desk.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:47 PM on July 3, 2015


No water for Waukesha!
posted by clavdivs at 7:45 PM on July 3, 2015


Don't give up, Wisconsin!

Bernie Sanders draws 10,000 to Wisconsin rally
posted by Room 641-A at 8:48 PM on July 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


WI-GOP walks it back.
posted by escabeche at 4:28 PM on July 4, 2015 [1 favorite]




Monsters
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 4:24 AM on July 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just heard Robin Vos on the radio explaining that the main reason for trying to change the rules had been to protect the privacy of constituent communications.

lol
posted by gerstle at 4:42 PM on July 6, 2015


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