A GOP motion in the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee passed language Thursday that would create sweeping changes for the state’s open records laws.
The so-called “999 motion” is a wrap-up of all remaining budget items and is introduced each session immediately before the budget goes to the full legislature. It is historically introduced and passed late in the night with little public input. Thursday, committee Republicans introduced the plan at around 5 p.m. and took it up just after 7 p.m. before sundown.
The motion passed with a 12-4 vote along party lines.
The plan would vastly change the definition of public records, making “deliberative materials”, such as drafts and emails, no longer open to the public. The motion grants members of the legislature the right to refuse to disclose almost all types of communication between the legislator, aides and other lawmakers.
Finance committee member Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, who lost an open records lawsuit brought by a conservative organization last year, said this change would basically guarantee legislators will knowing and unknowingly break the law.
Journalists often use open records to investigate and report on suspicious activity among lawmakers.
“I have been in office since 1998 and this is the darkest day,” Erpenbach said at the meeting. “The darkest day.”
The motion comes just after Gov. Scott Walker filed papers making official his candidacy for president. The open records law made it possible earlier this year for journalists to reveal that Walker’s original budget called for the removal of the Wisconsin Idea from state language.
The proposal would exempt many records from the Walker administration, along with other state agencies, from public access. Additionally, the language would create new provisions about public availability of dismissed criminal charges.
Committee Republican Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, said the bill would help normalize confusing language about what correspondence is and is not considered public record.
“I think that this serves to clarify and make it easier for us to stay on the right side of the law and the rules,” Knudson said.
But some Republicans in the committee distanced themselves from the proposal. Committee member and Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, told the Wisconsin State Journal he was not sure who put the language into the motion. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau and Finance Chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, noted the language had multiple supporters in its drafting stages, but they were not identified.
“I honestly don’t need [the changes] for my purposes,” Olsen said. “We have nothing to hide.”
The JFC also passed transportation and tax plans Thursday. The transportation motion reduced state bonding for roads from Walker’s original $1.3 million proposal to $500 million. This puts a halt on certain construction planned for the Milwaukee Zoo Interchange.
The budget’s next stop is the full legislature, but the Assembly and Senate will not likely take it up immediately. Senate leader Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Thursday he does not currently have the votes to pass the budget as is.
