"Open Records Law in Peril in Wisconsin."

Video from the conservative MacIver Institute featuring and agreeing with liberal state senator Jon Erpenbach, who's railing against the change to the open-records law and whom the The MacIver Institute once sued under the open-records law:



I got to that video via my colleague Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg, who writes:

Late last night, Wisconsin’s Joint Committee on Finance passed a motion (motion #999) to the Wisconsin state budget that would exempt “deliberative materials” like legislative drafting records and legislative briefings from Wisconsin’s open records laws....

Drafting records are used frequently by lawyers, journalists, analysts, and by the public to gain insight into the process by which legislation is created, influenced, and passed. Restricting access to this information would fundamentally limit the ability to conduct legislative research in Wisconsin.

What an embarrassing law change! The vote in the committee was completely on party lines, so Republicans are marking themselves with this.

Speaking of tags — see previous post — this gets my "stupid party" tag (which is not reserved for one party or the other — it goes to any party that is stepping up to distinguish itself as The Stupid Party).

UPDATE: Republicans back down from this folly.