Let us celebrate the 4th with a gutting of open records laws.

Quote:

Legislative Republicans on Thursday passed sweeping changes to the state’s open records law that would dramatically curtail the kind of information available to the public about the work that public officials do. The proposal blocks the public from reviewing nearly all records created by lawmakers, state and local officials or their aides, including electronic communications and the drafting files of legislation. The language was included in the final version of the state’s 2015-17 budget, which passed the Legislature’s budget committee on a party-line vote late Thursday. The budget bill next goes to the full Assembly and Senate. “This is the single most sweeping and outrageous affront to Wisconsin’s tradition of open government that I have seen in my quarter-century of involvement with the (Wisconsin) Freedom of Information Council,” council president Bill Lueders said. One provision creating a broad “legislator disclosure privilege” has no counterpart in any other state, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau testified. Despite voting for the motion, Republican members of the panel all professed not to know who proposed the public-records changes. Joint Finance Committee co-chairman Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, refused to answer a State Journal reporter when asked which lawmakers requested them. Speaking after the measure passed the committee, its other co-chairperson, Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, distanced herself from the measure she and Nygren allowed to come forward. “It wasn’t my motion, and it’s here as part of a package that came from other members,” Darling said. When asked who those members were, Darling said only that the request had come from multiple sources, then walked away.

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Some 4th of July comedy for you.

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