How did these guys ever get into the majority?
That’s the first question that occurs to me as I watch legislative Republicans dig themselves an ever-deeper hole on their public records debacle.
You know the story by now. In an eleventh-hour motion the 12 Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee tried to slip through sweeping changes that would gut Wisconsin’s open records law. Taken as a whole the changes essentially said that legislators could keep all of their actions and documents secret if they wanted to. And their timing was impeccable. They voted to destroy open government on the eve of the Fourth of July. Brilliant.
What were they thinking? Predictably every newspaper and public interest group in the state — from the liberal Cap Times to the conservative Lakeland Times, and from the liberal One Wisconsin Now to the conservative MacIver Institute — blasted the changes.
To quote the Lakeland Times, “It is nothing less than the attempted murder of honest government, and the perpetrators of it deserve the political equivalent of the death sentence: recall. To that end, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), need to come clean and tell the world who authored this attack on democratic principles. If they won’t, they need to be recalled.” And that’s from a Republican newspaper.
Not only did all of these entities use the strongest language possible in condemning the Republicans, but it was clear they were not going to let this drop. The Wisconsin State Journal summed it up best in their blistering editorial on the subject: “Moreover, this newspaper will use every investigative mechanism and journalistic capability possible, including seeking opinions of the court, to shine an even brighter light on legislative action.”
This will be a story for quite a while as the papers try to nail down exactly who asked for these changes and whether the governor was personally involved. News reports Tuesday confirm GOP leadership was at the table, along with staff from Walker’s office.
Over the weekend, the Republicans quickly backed off from the proposal and withdrew the changes. But then, inexplicably, they picked up the shovel once again and started digging themselves a still deeper hole. Speaker Robin Vos and Joint Finance Co-Chair John Nygren gave interviews in which they actually tried to defend the changes. Their arguments were totally specious. They claimed they were trying to protect the identities of constituents who contacted their offices. They were inventing a problem that doesn’t exist to any significant extent. Yes, Sen. Jon Erpenbach and others did try to redact the names of constituents in response to open records requests during the Act 10 fight, but Erpenbach strongly opposed these changes. And, most importantly, even Nygren and Vos acknowledge that the changes would allow legislators to keep secret documents that have nothing at all to do with their constituent contacts, including legislative drafting files.
The Republican leaders were trying to cover their tracks with excuses so thin as to be laughable if this weren’t such a serious subject. Skilled politicians would never have allowed this to be slipped into the budget in the first place. They should have been able to see the outrage coming a mile away. But once the blunder was committed, they should have had the good sense to pull the changes, admit the mistake and move on.
Vos, Nygren and the others aren’t stupid. There’s only one way to explain this level of colossal political bungling: the arrogance of power. With the governor’s office, a huge majority in the Assembly and a comfortable one in the Senate, and control of the state Supreme Court, a culture of imperiousness has set in among the Republicans.
They think they can do anything and get away with it. But that’s the beauty of our system. Hubris eventually pays its dividends. My guess is that they’re about to be taken down a notch or two at the next election.
