Author: Dee J. Hall

Recently, Wisconsin Watch revealed how members of the Wisconsin Legislature’s powerful budget committee secretly hold up projects or programs they don’t like. They often do so, reporter Jacob Resneck found, without following a state law that requires the committee to schedule a hearing within 14 working days of such an objection. The hearings are designed […]

In recent years, the news business in Wisconsin has seen a lot of bad news. Dozens of newspapers have closed. Revenues are way down. Staffs are being trimmed. And “vulture” hedge funds are circling, threatening to pick clean the bones of this once robust industry. But there is at least one piece of good news: […]

Bill Lueders was a young journalist at Madison’s Isthmus newspaper in the late 1980s when he learned the value of public records. Lueders wanted to see the complaints filed by citizens against the Madison police. This straightforward request led to a lawsuit — and then another one — joined by the Wisconsin State Journal and […]

When University of Wisconsin-Madison student journalist Peter Coutu investigated frequent lottery winners in Wisconsin in 2018, he uncovered a pattern: the owners and clerks of stores that sell lottery tickets seemed to have more luck than normal. In his article for Wisconsin Watch, Coutu consulted a statistical expert, who concluded that the lucky streaks among […]

This spring, I taught an investigative reporting class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that investigated the state of Wisconsin’s democracy. We interviewed current and former lawmakers and activists on the left and right, consulted public opinion polls, talked to regular people and tapped experts who study voting, redistricting and money in politics. The conclusion: Many […]

In advance of the Nov. 6 elections, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council surveyed candidates for state Assembly and Senate to gauge support for initiatives to require more openness by public officials, including the Legislature. We sent surveys to 204 candidates: 106 Democrats, 84 Republicans and 14 third-party contenders. We received 75 responses from 60 […]

In an age where major public policies are announced and debated through platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the courts are increasingly barring public officials from limiting people’s access to social media. In late July, a Virginia judge ruled that public officials do not have the right to block people who disagree with their views from […]

One of the most important court decisions in Wisconsin political history was argued largely in secret. The arguments were made in briefs that were heavily redacted or entirely shielded from public view. The evidence was hidden. Most of the litigants were anonymous. The level of secrecy “is something I haven’t ever heard of happening in […]

Bob Dreps, a veteran media law attorney, says law enforcement agencies across Wisconsin are “overreacting” to an Illinois federal court ruling by purging the names of drivers from public records. Police in Wisconsin have begun withholding the names of drivers in police reports in response to a 2012 case involving the village of Palatine, Ill. […]

Recently the City of Burlington made some changes to its website, adding a feature it calls a “performance dashboard.” The online tool gives city residents a better look – much of it in real time – about what their government is doing. As the site explains, “Users can review monthly and yearly revenue, expenditures, per […]

Wisconsin’s Open Records Law asserts the public’s right to the “greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those officers and employees who represent them.” But the law’s reach has been tested in recent years by electronic communications that are easily sent — and just as easily deleted — from […]

When members of the Columbia County Board committee that handles employment issues voted to go into closed session on Jan. 4, a reporter from the Daily Register newspaper in Portage and a local representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) objected. The two critics pointed out that under the controversial […]

When 14 Democratic state senators from Wisconsin fled to Illinois in February to avoid voting on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial anti-collective bargaining bill, a constituent complained to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen about the secret meetings the senators were having far from the Capitol, with no public notice. Van Hollen’s office told the disgruntled taxpayer […]

Last month, as the current legislative session ground to a close, Wisconsin became the 39th state to pass a shield law for news reporters. The law, the Whistleblower Protection Act, provides assurance to confidential sources that their identities will be protected should an attempt be made in court to force a reporter to reveal this […]

“I just came home, the door was bashed in and my girlfriend has been shot.” Those were the words of Jordan Gonnering, speaking to a 911 dispatcher last April after he found the body of Brittany Zimmermann in the downtown Madison apartment that he shared with her. Increasingly, the media use transcripts and audio of […]

On the surface, it seems like a simple, fair change to Wisconsin court procedures: If you escape conviction, your case can be erased from online records. But the possible consequence of such a fundamental change in public records access is more complicated – and the matter is so contentious that a Legislative Council committee did […]