WisWatch Blog
Drafting notes silent on author of open records overhaul
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Sixty pages of drafting documents included only initials and partial names of legislative service agency staffers.
Drunken Driving
How drunken driving bills fared in the 2013-2014 Wisconsin Legislature
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All but two of 13 bills died.
alberta darling
Gun bill died without shots being fired
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The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism filed a request with Darling’s office for her records on the bill. The 137 released pages provide some insight into what went on behind the scenes, but fall short of explaining why.
Legislative Reference Bureau
Report tracks lawmaker election trends
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Significantly, in all three areas under review in the report — tenure, turnover and reelection — the trends of the past several decades have not held true in the most recent elections.
eviction attempt
Out of the darkness, a happy first anniversary
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Exactly a year ago, the Wisconsin Legislature caught us sleeping. In a secret predawn move on June 5, 2013, legislators anonymously inserted a measure into the state budget. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jason Stein broke the news in a tweet at 5:19 a.m. — the moment we’re posting this update, as we reflect on the first anniversary. The entire Legislature soon approved the two-sentence provision, titled “Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.” It would have evicted WCIJ from offices we share with our student interns on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, and would have made it illegal for UW employees to collaborate with WCIJ. With your help, our darkest hour became our finest hour.
Your Right to Know
Your Right to Know: Lawmakers should retain, release records
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Lawmakers must provide any documents they possess in response to an open records request. But they don’t need to provide documents they don’t have, and nothing compels them to keep documents.
Money & Politics Column
Sen. Schultz exits, shaking his head
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Schultz, a Republican who is stepping down after 32 years in the Legislature, most as a state senator, is dumbfounded: “Who’d have ever thought you’d be at a Republican function and have to defend Abraham Lincoln?”
Open records
Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council statement on claims of legislative immunity to open records law
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So far as we can recall, no lawmaker has ever before tried to defeat the state’s open records law by employing this ruse. We are deeply disappointed in both Sen. Vukmir and the Attorney General’s Office, for the position it has taken.
Common Core
School districts paying $25 million for controversial Common Core standards
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Wisconsin’s new Common Core standards for math and English cost the state very little to implement because individual districts are footing the bill, which likely will come to about $25 million.
Budget
The state budget, by the numbers
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The biennial state budget is, in theory, fundamentally about numbers. So here are some numbers from and about the 2013-15 budget as crafted by Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature.
eviction attempt
Center’s possible eviction from UW: Summary and resources
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A summary of what happened, news coverage and the Center’s response to the budget provision that would have evicted the Center from the University of Wisconsin.
eviction attempt
Center’s eviction now in Walker’s court
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The Center’s eviction is now in Walker’s court. Both houses of the state Legislature have declined to ax a state budget provision that would evict the Center from the University of Wisconsin and bar UW employees from working with it as part of their duties.