On Feb 18, 2011 Gov Walker was served with FOIA requests for 8,000 emails he cited during a press conference as overwhelmingly positive, urging him to “stay firm” with the unions
The state law says the administration must act “as soon as practicable and without delay” to respond to records requests. Neither the Governor nor his office has responded yet to the requests or provided information regarding their status, which lead the requesters to file a complaint to force the Governor to comply with the law.
Walker only made the situation worse by ignoring the law. The Wisconsin Associated Press, the state’s largest news service, is one of the two requesters, and on Feb 25 after requesting updates and being ignored, the reporter filed an additional request for ALL of Walker’s emails relating to the “budget repair bill”.
Isthmus newspaper and the Wisconsin Associated Press today[March 4, 2011] filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker over his office’s failure to respond to open records requests regarding emails received by his office……The lawsuit, filed this afternoon in Dane County court, names as defendants Gov. Walker and the office of the governor…. The complaint states: “Defendants have violated the Wisconsin Open Records Law and Wis. Stat. § 19.37(1) by withholding the requested email messages and delaying granting access to the email messages.” It calls the defendants’ failure to provide these records “arbitrary and capricious.”
As of today, [3-12-2011] neither the Governor nor his legal counsel have responded to the requests.
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