Here & Now

Free Speech Proponent on Controversy in Lafayette County

Zac Schultz:

The Lafayette County Board recently debated a proposal that threatened prosecution for journalists reporting on water quality issues. The proposal was ultimately amended but not before it drew national attention. Joining us now is Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. Thanks for joining us.

Bill Lueders:

Sure.

Zac Schultz:

The proposal warned journalists they should quote directly from a press release or violators would be prosecuted. What is that — what were they trying to prevent? What was the intent there?

Bill Lueders:

Well, I guess there had been what they perceived to be, maybe in fact were, errors in the reporting of an earlier report and this was the hysterical overreaction of committee in Lafayette County to say you’re going to report what we tell you to report word for word or we’re coming after you, which is ridiculous. There’s no legal basis for making a threat like that. It additionally threatened members of the county board in Lafayette County and public employees with consequences if they were to talk at all about this upcoming groundwater quality report. They had to toe the company line or they would be in big trouble. Again, huge Constitutional problems. That’s not why we have independently-elected public officials, so they can be told to sit down and shut up. Both prongs of this proposal were removed. First the one against media. Then later in the day on Tuesday, the prong that dealt with public officials elected and public employees in Lafayette County.

Zac Schultz:

Now, the county board chairman won’t admit who wrote it. Is it possible the author didn’t know it was blatantly unconstitutional? Or was there a direct chilling effect?

Bill Lueders:

Well, whoever wrote this intended to have a chilling effect, intended to chill speech, intended to frighten people into compliance. It’s hard to believe that the person thought that this was okay, but apparently the person did or they wouldn’t have proposed this. And it was so outlandish, as you noted, it generated national attention. The Washington Post and the New York Times and I presume many other papers around the country ran an Associated Press story about this. It’s just so, you know, crazy that it’s the type of thing that draws national attention. I think at the hearing that took place on this on Tuesday, there was a fair amount of expression by citizens that they were embarrassed by the conduct of their public officials, that they would put out something like this that would bring disrepute to the county.

Zac Schultz:

We’ve heard similar stories or roughly similar versions of this happening in other places. Is that because we’re hearing more news, this gets a national repeat when it happens, or is it happening more often?

Bill Lueders:

I don’t know if it’s happening more often. I think it’s an anomaly. I hope it’s an anomaly. But what’s dispiriting about this episode is that it happened to begin with. That there were people in positions of authority even at a county government level, who didn’t know better than to put something like this forward.

Zac Schultz:

But questions like this still exist all the way up to federal and state level. Governor Evers recently had some issues about what information he was going to release to reporters.

Bill Lueders:

Yeah. That was the second dispiriting thing that happened that we called attention to this week, is that a Milwaukee television station, Fox 6, reported that it had requested initially a month worth of emails to and from Governor Evers, one of his key staff people, and was told that was too broad a request, they couldn’t comply. So it asked for a week’s worth of emails. They were told that was too broad an about, they couldn’t comply. And then they said give us just one day’s worth of emails. They were told that was too broad a request and they weren’t going to get any records. Again, the mere fact that the governor would refuse a request like that generated news stores. It’s not a good thing and I think the governor’s office is wrong to have denied the request, particularly a day’s worth of emails. That’s not unmanageable. That’s not too much. Our open records law, like our open meetings law, has baked right into it the presumption of maximum openness. Public officials are supposed to err, if they err at all, on the side of being too open, not too secretive. In this case, it looks as though the governor’s office was doing everything it could to try to find some reason to say no to a request from this television station, when under the law and under good public policy, it should have been doing everything it could to find some reason to say yes, here are your records.

Zac Schultz:

So the chilling effect quiets people, but all the attention, does that have the opposite effect, of maybe keeping this from happening again somewhere else?

Bill Lueders:

Oh, I think so. I hope so. I think what happened in Lafayette County and I hope what happened with the governor sends a signal to public officials that there are certain things they can’t get away with and shouldn’t try. It may come down to litigation in the case involving the television station, the governor’s office. If the station were to sue under our open records law and say that the denial was improper, I think the courts would agree with that. That would be very unfortunate because Governor Evers doesn’t need a black eye over this issue. He should be seizing every opportunity he can to use transparency as a way first of all, to build trust with the people that he represents and second of all, to make positive advances in an area where the public is onboard. The public likes when public officials do things to make government more open and he should be doing that.

Zac Schultz:

All right. Bill Lueders, thanks for your time today.

Bill Lueders:

Sure. Thank you.