Category: Your Right To Know

I don’t know what it’s like to wear handcuffs, or to be threatened with arrest. I hope I never do. But that could happen, because carrying a camera puts a target on one’s back these days. Photography and videography, for news gathering or fun, are garnering lots of attention from police and other public officials. […]

Last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court powerfully affirmed the state’s tradition of open and transparent government. In a unanimous ruling, the court affirmed the statutory limits the Legislature placed on public records fees and rejected the argument that requesters can be required to pay “each and every cost incurred by an authority.” The dispute between […]

Advocates of open government often quiz candidates for public office on their level of support for official transparency. The candidates, when asked, always tout their commitment. That doesn’t mean they always deliver. Both Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, have fielded many requests for public records. Indeed, since becoming […]

Wherever they may be on the political spectrum, most Wisconsinites would likely agree that the last year has been a lively one for open government issues in our state. Access issues — including Capitol access, records requests to university professors, arrests of photojournalists, and secret redistricting, to name a few — have regularly made the […]

For decades, a one-man toll booth operated at either the Martin Luther King Boulevard or West Washington Avenue entrances to Wisconsin’s Capitol. “Hey, what do you know?” Dick Wheeler, the dean of the Capitol press corps, would ask anyone entering or leaving. Wheeler, left hand holding his pipe, asked the question to the powerful and […]

It’s time once again for proponents of open government and the free flow of information to celebrate Sunshine Week. But this year, we’ll be doing it under a cloud. The March 11-17 commemoration is sponsored by the American Society of News Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists and other groups. It occurs annually during the […]

As part of national Sunshine Week, March 11-17, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is bestowing its annual “Opee” Awards for openness in government. And Wisconsin state lawmakers have been tapped for both kinds of awards — good as well as bad. Six Opees are being given to eight individuals for 2011-12. The winners get […]

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 […]

Wisconsin citizens who obtain a simple permit now have the right to carry concealed weapons, in most public places. According to the governor and the majority of state legislators, that’s going to make the state a safer place. Unfortunately, though, we’ll never know for sure. That’s because the Legislature saw fit to exempt the permitting […]

Earlier this year, after Gov. Scott Walker was sued for the release of the thousands of emails he received at the height of the Capitol union protests, he posted a message on his web page: “Please know that any communications may be subject to release under Wisconsin’s public records law and that our policy is […]

No one deserves more credit for forging Wisconsin’s traditions of open government than the state Legislature.   From passing the nation’s first public records law in 1849, one year after Wisconsin became a state, to the last major update of our Open Records and Open Meetings Laws in the early 1980s, the Legislature has been […]

  On Sept. 19, Clinton Fillinger was arrested while doing his job — perhaps because he was doing it. The 68-year-old veteran photojournalist, employed by Milwaukee’s WITI Fox6, was filming a house fire from behind yellow police tape. A Milwaukee police sergeant approached and ordered Fillinger to move back, “all the way back.” Fillinger’s video […]

Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, is an insurance agent who sponsored an auto insurance bill in January, one of the first bills to pass the new Legislature. His opponents pegged him as the insurance industry’s best friend; Nygren said he was following the will of the people, many of whom had told him their auto insurance […]

Every ten years, legislative and congressional district boundaries are redrawn to account for population shifts reflected in the U.S. Census. It’s an important process, one that merits months of public deliberation and scrutiny. But that’s not what happens in Wisconsin. Our state’s redistricting process is handled almost completely out of public view by the party […]

Wisconsin has a long and proud history of open government. We have a strong Open Meetings Law which has served Wisconsin citizens well. That law, which requires public notice at least 24 hours before public meetings, applies to your library board, school board and city council – but it does not apply to the Wisconsin […]

No matter how people feel about the changes to Wisconsin’s collective bargaining laws passed by the Legislature in March  — and then voided on May 26 by Judge Maryann Sumi — Wisconsin residents should take heart in Judge Sumi’s decision. She declared the state’s Open Meetings Law means something. “This case is the exemplar of […]

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 […]

The key question in the ongoing legal tussle over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill comes down to this: “Must the Legislature comply with the state’s Open Meetings Law?” At first glance, the answer might seem obvious, since the Legislature itself pledged to comply when it passed the law in 1975. Here’s the exact language: […]

In 1836, with a vision for the city that would become Wisconsin’s capital, James Doty proposed that it be named after the man known as the “father of the Constitution,” who had died that year. James Madison, the fourth U.S. president, is one of the most lasting and relevant of our Founding Fathers. A signer […]

Sunshine Week, a national celebration of the ideal (if not always the practice) of openness in government, was launched in 2005 and is already a tradition. This year it’s set for March 13-19. In connection with this event, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is giving its fifth annual “Opee” Awards to those who’ve made […]