Uproar over proposal to curtail public records laws in Wisconsin

A vote by Wisconsin's budget committee to dismantle the state's open records laws has caused an uproar across the Badger State.

Under these measures, lawmakers would be able to draft bills in secret and hide their communications from the public. The changes would also apply to local government officials, including school board members.

No other state in the country has similar statutes, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan agency that helps legislators draft laws.

The Joint Finance Committee passed it 12-4 on a party line vote. Republicans refused to say who initiated the measures and the reasoning for them.

Before becoming law, both houses of the Republican-controlled state Legislature and Republican Gov. Scott Walker must approve the measures.

Media organizations and open government advocates say the measures would irreversibly damage the democratic process in Wisconsin.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said the measures are meant to hurt public knowledge.

"These radical and sweeping changes represent a full-frontal attack on Wisconsin's history of open government," Lueders wrote. "They are clearly intended to block the public from discovering what factors drive the official actions of government, especially the Legislature, and will inevitably lead to abuse, malfeasance and corruption."

The criticism comes from across party lines and ideologies, including from Democratic legislators and the free-market think tank MacIver Institute. The organization previously sued state Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) to hand over names and emails of people who contacted him in 2011 during the height of protests regarding Act 10, a law that essentially dismantled collective bargaining for many public workers.

Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, who established an open government office specific to helping the public obtain records, also condemned the measures in a statement Friday.

"Transparency is the cornerstone of democracy and the provisions in the budget bill limiting access to public records move Wisconsin in the wrong direction," Schimel said.

The Society of Professional Journalists asked for "FOIA soldiers" to contact state officials in a tweet Friday, calling the passage "a serious issue in Wisconsin."

Joel Christopher, vice president of news for Gannett Wisconsin Media, said, "this is the greatest threat to Wisconsin's open records laws that I've ever witnessed."

"Governing in secrecy strikes at the fundamental values of representative democracy. This proposal should be frightening and worrisome for all Wisconsin residents."

Andy Hall, executive director for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, said the changes would "eviscerate the public's access to the workings of government."

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism was the target of an amendment to the 2013 budget calling for the center to be ousted from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Walker vetoed the amendment.

"It's a ghastly piece of legislation that should be shredded," Hall said.

— Madeleine Behr: 920-993-1000 ext. 7226; mbehr@gannett.com; on Twitter @madeleinebehr

To contact your legislator about the proposal, click here.