Wisconsin State Senator Leah Vukmir, a key confidante of Governor Scott Walker who serves as ALEC’s national treasurer, has for months been stonewalling a legitimate open-records request from the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which worked with The Nation on the 2011 ALEC Exposed project that revealed how the corporate-funded council has been working with state legislators across the country to enact measures developed by special interest groups.
As Vukmir has emerged as one of the most prominent figures in ALEC, the Center for Media and Democracy has sought information regarding bills she has proposed in cooperation with the national group. Because of her refusal to cooperate with those requests, CMD is suing to force her to turn over the records.
Vukmir is not the first legislator to try to thwart the public’s right to know. Just last year, CMD had to sue a group of Wisconsin Republican legislators to get them to turn over ALEC-related documents under the open-records law.
But Vukmir has taken things to a new, and bizarre, level.
She’s claiming that a constitutional protection against targeting legislators with nuisance lawsuits exempts her from following the open-records laws that was established by the legislature — and that legislators, state officials and the courts have respected for decades.
Read the rest of the story at Bill Moyer’s website.
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