Category: Your Right To Know

Let the sunshine in! In my career as a journalist, I have encountered many public officials who respect government openness and transparency. There was the state records custodian who turned over dozens of her boss’s embarrassing emails after telling him that keeping them secret would violate the law. And the university staffers who pointed me […]

Computers have made examining government records easier than ever. The smallest townships across Wisconsin post the meeting agendas and minutes online. And websites for government agencies at all levels contain an enormous amount of other information. Electronic records are also available on request. Say you want to see a skate-park-feasibility study you’ve heard about. You […]

A week after Republicans in the state Legislature voted to gut the public records law in 2015, members of the Assembly sought to quell backlash over the plan. A resolution that passed 96-1 affirms that the Assembly “remains committed to our state’s open record and open government laws and policies, and will take all necessary […]

State law makes nearly all governmental records open to inspection and copying, and requires custodians to release records “as soon as possible and without delay.” So how are they doing? Recently, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty conducted an experiment to see how well school districts are complying with the state’s Open Records Law. […]

After 35 years of reporting on government, I’m not sure how much I’ve learned, but I do have some observations. First, most politicians, government officials and staff want to do a good job and faithfully represent their constituents’ interests at city hall, the state Capitol, and in Congress. Second, most probably prefer to not have […]

The nonprofit group I belong to is called the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. Our mission is to protect and expand access to public records. Usually this entails pushing state and local government officials to be as open as possible. But lately, a number of developments raise a peculiar concern: Are officials being too open? […]

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 […]

As befits a year in which anything, it seems, can happen, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s public records docket this term was marked by atypical cases. In Voces de la Frontera v. Clarke, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department redacted information from immigration detainer forms provided in response to public records requests, asserting that a federal immigration […]

Not long ago, I asked Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) for records regarding a controversial bill he helped author on free-speech rights at state universities. I had already obtained some communications between Vos aide Alicia Schweitzer and the Legislative Reference Bureau, from the bill-drafting file. They showed that his office had added bill language […]

The Wisconsin Constitution states that “the doors of each house” of the state Legislature “shall be kept open,” except on rare occasions. But even with the doors open, the public may not know what’s going on. A growing trend threatens transparency—and good government—in Wisconsin. Some legislative committees are using “mail ballots” to vote, instead of […]

It’s been nearly two years since Republicans in the state Legislature tried to use a secretive, last-minute measure just before the July 4 holiday weekend to gut Wisconsin’s open records law . This effort, once publicized , was met with public outrage and abandoned . This was the most egregious but by no means only […]

In March, for the second year in a row, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker issued an executive order regarding the state’s open records law. It notes that “the American republic and the State of Wisconsin were founded on the basis of broad accountability of government to the people.” And it declares that “the free flow of […]

Time and again, transparency advocates have seen that protecting Wisconsin’s traditions of open government depends on the courage and initiative of individuals. This year’s winners of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council ’s Openness Awards, or Opees, include two citizens, two journalists, one fired government worker and one small but gutsy Wisconsin newspaper. The council […]

Two days before the new president’s inauguration, the Society of Professional Journalists and dozens of other media and government transparency groups sent a letter asking Donald Trump for a meeting to discuss his administration’s relationship with the press. Among other things, the groups wanted Trump to affirm his commitment to the First Amendment, assure media […]

For more than two centuries, governments in this country have paid newspapers to publish public notices about the actions of government. But now, Wisconsin state legislators are circulating a pair of bills, AB70 and SB42, that aim to take public notices out of newspapers and put them instead on government websites. It’s a bad idea that […]

On Sunday, August 14, after a night of unrest prompted by the fatal police shooting of a black man, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said his review of body camera video of the incident proved the officer had acted appropriately. “The individual did turn toward the officer with a firearm in his hand,” Flynn stated, […]

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 […]

Since the beginning of 2015, police in Wisconsin have killed 30 people, according to one media database. In Madison, Neenah, Eau Claire, Wausau, East Troy, Wauwatosa and Milwaukee, officers have used their power to its ultimate extent. These officer-involved killings test the relationships between police officers and the public they are sworn to protect and […]

State Attorney General Brad Schimel has been a stand-up guy when it comes to open government issues in Wisconsin since he took over the Department of Justice in 2015. He created an office of open government , held a summit on government transparency, worked to improve records request response times within his own office, and […]

Over the July 4 weekend in 2015, members of the state Legislature sparked a public uproar by proposing last-minute changes to the state budget bill that would have created a “deliberative process” exception to Wisconsin’s long-cherished public records law. Government transparency advocates condemned the move, and the changes were hastily rescinded. But the effort to […]