October: Evers can do better on openness

Early in his administration, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers was asked to produce a letter he’d gotten from departing Gov. Scott Walker, during the transition. He initially refused, claiming it was a “purely personal” communication outside of the reach of the state’s open records law. When the Associated Press asked me for comment, in my role […]

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September: Lawmakers use costs to rebuff records requests

In May, as the state Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget committee considered a plan to spend far less on education than what Democrat Gov. Tony Evers proposed, Sheila Plotkin started filing public records requests. Plotkin asked nearly every member of the Joint Finance Committee for correspondence they had received from Wisconsin residents about education funding. All of […]

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July: Lawsuit put end to abusive practice

Wisconsin’s open records law applies to all records requests, big or small. But under former Attorney General Brad Schimel, the Wisconsin Department of Justice implemented a restrictive policy that limited access based on the number of potentially responsive emails. After being sued by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the Justice Department rescinded its […]

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