Thursday, March 17, 2011

Scott Walker Celebrates Sunshine Week By Losing An Open Records Lawsuit

As Wisconsin Gov.-elect, Scott Walker told the Wisconsin State Journal he'd "absolutely" be a leader in open government and transparency.

"Walker also pledges that his administration will be responsive to open records requests, regularly submit to questioning by the media, disclose the names of those inside and outside the administration that he's meeting with, and provide detailed weekly — perhaps even daily — schedules."
Blogger Cory Liebmann had earlier posted some history that should have thrown doubt on Walker's pledge.

Anyway - - why after Walker became Governor did it take a lawsuit, court action and hefty payments of tax money Wednesday to force Walker to fill an Open Records case that his stonewalling transformed into litigation? That he lost?

As The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday:
"Records case. Also Wednesday, Walker's office settled an open records lawsuit brought by two media outlets.

"The Associated Press and the Madison weekly newspaper Isthmus filed the lawsuit on March 4 seeking e-mails sent to Walker by the public weighing in on his union bargaining legislation.
"On Wednesday, Isthmus posted a story to its website saying that under the settlement Walker did not acknowledge any fault but agreed to produce the records and pay attorney's fees and costs of around $7,000. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie confirmed those details."

2 comments:

Betsey said...

Gonna be hard to ignore those hundreds of thousands of e-mails now, or tell the media it's just a bunch of 'out-of-staters'.

Question is: what will JS and Cap Times do with e-mails once they have them?

They should request e-mails of all of the Republican legislators--at least to preserve before they become 'lost' or victims of a computer crash.

James Rowen said...

I noticed a few weeks ago that the Waukesha Mayor personally paid a forfeiture of more than $2,000 over his delay in releasing emails to The Freeman.

I wonder if Walker will do the same?