Posted on 07/10/2015 8:55:07 AM PDT by conservativejoy
Walker and GOP legislators drop controversial changes to open records law after bipartisan backlash
Posted 3:57 pm, July 4, 2015, by AP Wire
Capitol Madison, WI
MADISON — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he and GOP legislative leaders have agreed to completely remove a part of the proposed state budget that would severely roll back the state’s open records laws.
Walker announced the decision in a joint statement Saturday, July 4th with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and the co-chairs of the joint budget committee.
The statement says the records proposal “will be removed from the budget in its entirety.” They say the plan “was never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way.”
The restrictions, which Republicans slipped into the proposed budget late Thursday, would exempt nearly everything created by government officials from Wisconsin’s open records law.
The statement says the Legislature will form a committee to study the issue and allow for public discussion.
Governor Scott Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and the Joint Finance Committee Co-Chairs, Senator Alberta Darling and Representative John Nygren, released the following statement on the provisions to the state’s open records law included in Motion 999:
“After substantive discussion over the last day, we have agreed that the provisions relating to any changes in the state’s open records law will be removed from the budget in its entirety. We are steadfastly committed to open and accountable government. The intended policy goal of these changes was to provide a reasonable solution to protect constituents’ privacy and to encourage a deliberative process between elected officials and their staff in developing policy. It was never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way.”
“In order to allow for further debate on this issue outside of budget process, the Legislature will form a Legislative Council committee to more appropriately study it and allow for public discussion and input
Sorry your reading comprehension is not up to snuff. The answers to your questions are right here...
Top Assembly Republicans on Monday defended their party’s attempt to dramatically alter the state’s open records law — a proposal that was swiftly scrapped over the weekend in response to broad public condemnation.
Rep. John Nygren, co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, said the plan had the input and support of legislative leaders from both houses.
Nygren, R-Marinette, said in an interview that the goal of the proposed changes was to protect constituents, and he said news outlets have misrepresented the intent.
“In my view, there should be some privacy for constituents to contact my office. You guys don’t give a (expletive) about that,” Nygren said. “All you want to do is make this about, somehow, that we’re stifling transparency for the press.”
Speaking in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio earlier Monday, Vos, R-Rochester, echoed that reasoning and said there was “nothing sinister” about the open records changes or lawmakers’ decision to scrap them less than 48 hours after they were made public.
“We want to ensure that if somebody writes their legislator, they should know that the comments that they make and the words that they say have some ability to be protected, so they can’t be targeted,” said Vos, R-Rochester.
Why does Walker need to deny involvement when the Speaker of the Assembly and a leading Finance committee chairman openly say it was their effort and that with some tailoring the change will be submitted again? You sound so much like a deranged liberal on this.
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