Requesting public records in Wisconsin can sometimes mean waiting weeks, months and even longer for government officials and agencies to respond. What could help speed things along?
At the state Department of Justice, which has recently comeunderscrutiny for its own delays in releasing records, Attorney General Josh Kaul says the agency he leads needs more money.
“Additional resources could help the DOJ reduce response times to public records requests,” Kaul told the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, in advance of the Nov. 3 election for attorney general. The council sent questionnaires about government transparency to Kaul, the Democratic incumbent seeking a third term, and his Republican challenger, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, who narrowly lost his previous bid to unseat Kaul in 2022.
Kaul answered our questions; Toney did not, despite multiple emails and a call to his campaign.
Jonathan Anderson (Provided photo)
In addition to responding to requests for its own records, the DOJ is empowered to interpret and enforce the public records and open meetings laws. Both Kaul and Toney said in 2022 that one of the biggest challenges to enforcing these laws was a lack of funding. This time around, we asked both candidates what has been done to close this gap and what more needs to be done.
Kaul, in his reply, said his administration sought 2.6 positions in the 2025-27 state budget for DOJ public records staffing, but these positions were ultimately cut from that budget. “The addition of those positions would have resulted in more DOJ staff time being available to promote and obtain compliance with the public records and open meetings laws,” Kaul said.
He added that his administration has made the same funding request for the 2027-29 state budget.
Toney told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this year that he would prioritize staffing in the DOJ.
We further asked the candidates whether the DOJ should take a more active role in enforcement of the public records and open meetings law.
Kaul said the DOJ should address enforcement on a case-by-case basis to balance compliance efforts with the agency’s limited resources. He said the DOJ should continue to offer guidance and training and to seek volunteer compliance for unintentional violations. “In a case involving an egregious, intentional violation, an enforcement action should be considered,” Kaul wrote.
Although Toney did not respond to the council’s questionnaire this year, he said in 2022 that he would, as attorney general, “apply sufficient resources and prioritize the proper administration and enforcement” of the public records and open meetings laws. Toney added that because the laws also allow for private enforcement, he would emphasize the DOJ’s role in issuing legal opinions, informal guidance and training.
“When elected, openness and transparency will be a priority for my office,” Toney said in 2022.
Asked what changes should be made to the state’s sunshine laws, Kaul said they “should be modernized to account for technological developments that have occurred since the laws were enacted.” He also said members of the state Legislature should no longer be exempt from record retention rules. (The removal of this exception has also drawn support from the two candidates for governor, Democrat David Crowley and Republican Tom Tiffany. That race will be the subject of an upcoming Your Right to Know column.)
Finally, Kaul said agencies should follow the DOJ’s practice of proactively releasing information about public records responses. The DOJ posts on its website a “snapshot” of pending records requests and reports detailing response times and other activities by the Office of Open Government.
The election is Nov. 3.
Read Kaul’s full response to WISFOIC’s questionnaire here.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Jonathan Anderson is the organization’s treasurer.
The Nov. 3 race for Wisconsin attorney general, a rematch between Democratic incumbent Josh Kaul and Republican challenger Eric Toney, features their contrasting views on the Trump administration, abortion, election security and problems in crime lab testing.
Kaul, 45, a former federal prosecutor and private attorney, won his first four-year term as attorney general in 2018, defeating Republican incumbent Brad Schimel, 49.4% to 48.8%.
Toney, 42, a former private attorney, was first elected Fond du Lac County district attorney in 2012. He lost to Kaul by 1.3 percentage points in 2022.
Kaul’s opposition to President Donald Trump has largely defined his second term. He has joined in more than 70 lawsuits to fight Trump administration initiatives, including some to restore funding for infrastructure and schools.
Toney accuses Kaul of being too political and criticizes Kaul’s administration for shortcomings in the state crime labs. When Kaul ran in 2018, he made similar arguments about Schimel’s legal actions against the Obama administration.
Other issues animating voters this election season reveal clear distinctions between the candidates.
Asked about abortion, Toney defended the state’s ban on abortion after 20 weeks and linked the issue to a federal Title IX investigation into a New Richmond School District policy allowing transgender female students to use the girls bathrooms. Kaul said he would join multistate litigation to protect access to abortion medication.
On officer-involved shootings, Kaul advocated for jail alternatives while Toney put the focus on the victim’s actions prior to the shootings.
On election integrity, Kaul emphasized guarding against voter intimidation while Toney focused on preventing and prosecuting voter fraud.
Wisconsin Watch interviewed Kaul in Madison on Aug. 6 and Toney in Milwaukee on Sept. 11. Here are some key areas where the candidates disagree, with contextual information from Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin Watch (WW) to Josh Kaul: You said you’ve joined more than 60 multistate cases against the Trump administration. Does that make you a partisan actor?
Kaul: “I look at two things when I decide whether we’re going to join a multistate suit. One is, is the program that we’re talking about, the (federal government) action that’s being taken, is it harmful to Wisconsinites? And then secondly, do we have a strong legal basis for the case? Now, people can disagree on whether programs are important for Wisconsin or not; that’s part of why we have elections for these offices. But I think if you look at our track record, you’ll see we’ve had wins where we’ve gotten either orders blocking what the administration has tried to do, or the administration has backed down in a number of those cases.”
More context
A ChatGPT-assisted analysis Sept. 15 found that of the 72 lawsuits Kaul has joined against the second Trump administration, 40 won a permanent or temporary favorable ruling or settlement, nine failed and 23 are pending. Successful cases include a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding birthright citizenship; court rulings blocking a $65 million cut to federal research funding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and orders blocking the Trump administration from demanding states provide personal information of FoodShare recipients.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul at his campaign office in Madison, Wis., on Aug. 6, 2026. (Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to Eric Toney: What is your assessment of Kaul’s lawsuits against the Trump administration?
Toney: “Well, one of the things we saw when he first ran for attorney general, he campaigned against federal lawsuits and said the office was too political. And now he’s broken that promise, and that’s essentially what his entire campaign is about. And so we see the consequences where the politics are coming before public safety.”
More context
In his first campaign for attorney general, Kaul accused then-Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican, of politicizing the office by filing too many lawsuits against the Obama administration. But Kaul also said he would join lawsuits that protect consumers and students.
WW to Toney: What’s one thing from the Kaul administration you would stop doing?
Toney: “The failure we’re seeing in the broken promises with the forensic testing at the (state) crime lab. We’ve seen, when I helped the attorney general get more crime lab positions in the ‘23 budget, when the nonpartisan audit came out a year later, we saw that those positions hadn’t been filled, that they had less DNA analyst positions filled compared to 2020.”
More context
A 2024 audit by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found that the vacancy rate of crime laboratory analyst positions increased from 2.6% in July 2019 to 9.5% in July 2023; and that the median turnaround time for analyzing evidence increased from 39 days for assignments created in FY 2019-20 to 58 days for assignments created in FY 2022-23.
Toney: “And we’re seeing the consequences of that with increased time for testing is taking, on average, over twice as long in some categories, including DNA, despite more resources. We have to take some of the recommendations from that nonpartisan audit with performance metrics in place for these analysts, who do a great job. But we have to have those standards in place.”
More context
Wisconsin Watch found the median time for DNA testing in criminal cases was 112 days in 2024, up from 61 in 2022. Annual DNA case intake dropped from 4,347 in 2022 to 4,124 in 2024. But the number of items of evidence increased from 38,076 to 39,992. And data cited by Toney on staffing don’t indicate which positions are accountable for the crime labs’ output.
Wisconsin attorney general candidate Eric Toney interviewed at the Milwaukee Police Association Sept. 11, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
Toney: “We saw the campaign promise that he had talked about, the rape kit test, for example. And towards the end of that first campaign, he talked about all the hard work that was going to be needed to find justice for those survivors. And so what we’ve seen from those original kits, it was probably over $9 million, over 4,000 kits tested, and in his almost eight years as attorney general, they’ve gotten less than 15 convictions.”
More context
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2024 that in 2015, three years before Kaul took office, Wisconsin received $9.5 million in federal grants to test and clear a backlog of rape kits and only 10 people were convicted of sex offenses over the next 10 years as a result.
WW to Kaul: Your opponent has said that on average, DNA testing is taking twice as long as it did under the previous attorney general. What is your response?
Kaul: “He’s making a comparison that’s not a direct comparison. When it comes to DNA analysis in particular during my time as AG, we upgraded the type of testing we do. We now use what’s called probabilistic genotyping. And as a result of that, we’re able to get DNA matches in more cases. So we can actually solve more cases and hold more people accountable for crimes they’ve committed. But it also is a more involved process, and so doing a case is more complex.
“Another area we’ve seen that happen is with toxicology testing. We’ve upgraded. We now use technology that allows us to identify controlled substances at lower quantities — which, at a time when we’re dealing with fentanyl, which can be very potent at very low quantities, is really important. But it also means we get more data, and so analysts are reviewing more data.”
“What we have had a challenge with is the Legislature has consistently declined to give us the resources that we’ve asked for.”
More context
In the 2023-25 state budget, Kaul requested 16 additional crime labs positions and the Legislature provided three; in 2025-27, Kaul requested 19 and the Legislature provided none.
WW to both: U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said he wants to make the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion permanent in every state. What would that mean for Wisconsin?
Kaul: “Clearly there is an effort at the federal level to restrict access to abortion rights. One of the things that has been talked about is trying to put restrictions in place on medication abortion, for example. And so, obviously, a critical issue that we have worked on during my time as AG is protecting access to safe and legal abortion in Wisconsin. If there’s federal action where we’ve got a strong legal basis for challenging it, and it’s in the interest of Wisconsinites to challenge it, we will be prepared to do so.
“In Eric Toney, you have an AG candidate who was more than happy to be the lead abortion enforcer in the state. He called for the AG’s office to have enforcement authority. He raised the possibility of adjoining counties even prosecuting people for abortions, prosecuting medical professionals. And so reproductive rights is very much at stake in this year’s elections.”
More context
Toney said during the previous campaign (but later said he was taken out of context): “We need to give our attorney general the authority to prosecute. They already would have the technical authority to investigate it. And I think another approach would be allowing for adjoining counties to be able to investigate and enforce that abortion ban in Wisconsin.”
Toney: “We have five-month, or 20-week, protections in the law right now. I’m not advocating for any changes to that, and if there is going to be any change, that needs to be something that’s voted on by the people and not decided on by politicians in Madison. We know how difficult this decision can be for women and girls and their families, and we need to make sure here in Wisconsin that we’re creating a supportive environment for women and girls that I hope life may be the choice that they decide to make. And that support has to extend beyond that as well and making sure that we’re protecting women and girls’ private spaces, bathrooms, locker rooms and sports. And we’ve seen the attorney general has failed to stand up in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where we’ve seen the school district allowing biological boys in the girls bathrooms.
More context
In April, parents and students filed a federal lawsuit claiming the district allows “male students to use girls’ bathrooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex.”
“And that’s in contrast to Josh Kaul, where he essentially advocated for getting rid of the five-month protections. He called them restrictions and is effectively advocating for nine-month abortion here in Wisconsin.”
More context
On Toney’s nine-month claim, Toney’s campaign cited a 2024 interview in which Kaul was asked: “A Wisconsin law prohibits abortion after 20 weeks. What more do you want to see there in the law?” Kaul replied: “What we have are not protections. We have restrictions on abortion in state law. I’d like to see some changes made that ensure that people are able to get the reproductive health care they need, and that decisions are made between women and their doctors or their spouses or their spiritual advisors — whoever it is that they want to talk to — but not having the government intervene.”
Wisconsin attorney general candidate Eric Toney is seen at the Milwaukee Police Association Sept. 11, 2026. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to both: Does Wisconsin’s attorney general need to do more to safeguard Wisconsin elections?
Toney: “We’ve got great protections in the law right now, if we have somebody that’s serving a felony sentence, to deter them from registering to vote and then prosecuting them if they ultimately vote. And I’ve prosecuted some of those cases where felons have ultimately registered and voted.
“And that’s where we need to have a similar process that reviews noncitizens that could be on our voter rolls. We have people that are lawfully in the country that are noncitizens, whether it’s for work or school, that may get a driver’s license or an ID card, and we don’t know what that problem could be because there’s no process in place to review it. And that’s where I’d like to see a similar process that we use for felons for that noncitizen process, just to make sure that people have confidence in those results. And if somebody is doing that, that they’re being prosecuted.
“But we don’t know what the number is because we’ve been unable to get the (state election commission and state Department of Transportation) to communicate on some of that information.”
Kaul: “Throughout my time as AG, we’ve had concerns about elections being attacked in one way or the other. I was AG in 2020 when Donald Trump and his allies tried to overturn the results. We defended the results in various cases and we won every one of those cases and ultimately the will of the voters was upheld.
“There have been concerns over the years about voter intimidation at the polls and we made clear that voter intimidation is a crime and that people who commit that crime need to expect to be held accountable.”
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul at his campaign office in Madison, Wis., on Aug. 6, 2026. (Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch)
WW to both: The fatal Madison police shooting of Corey Ruiz, who was armed with a knife, has raised debate about officer-involved shootings. Should changes be made, inside or outside of the criminal justice system?
Kaul: “One thing I’ve long been a proponent of is investment in treatment and diversion programs. The fundamental idea is, if there are folks who end up in the justice system because they have committed violent crimes and they’re a danger to our communities, they need to be held accountable and separated from society. On the other hand, there are people who end up in our justice system who have underlying struggles like drug addiction or mental health challenges. And if you put those people in jail, in a lot of cases for minor offenses, and then they come right back out without having those underlying issues addressed, they’re likely to keep ending up back in the system, causing more damage and costing more money to communities and having worse outcomes for them as well.
“I think you’re going to get better outcomes in general when you have law enforcement officers who know the communities where they’re working. And so investing in things like community policing, I think, is really valuable.”
Toney: “Whenever we look at a problem we have to look at the entirety of the problem. When we look at officer-involved shootings, we have to look at what is the officer doing and then what is the individual who’s been shot doing. And we see a tremendous amount of training for law enforcement, whether it’s de-escalation, use of force, all of those different types of things.
“We can’t paint anything with a broad brush, but many of these officer-involved shootings, we have somebody that either may have a weapon, acts like they have a weapon, or is actively resistant or not following the commands of law enforcement. And so we want to make sure that if somebody disagrees with what law enforcement’s doing, that they follow those commands in the moment, and then they can take whatever that legal process may be after the fact if they think something was done unlawful.”
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Meta agreed Wednesday to pay $17 billion and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms as part of a landmark legal settlement that ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by 47 states.
Wisconsin would receive at least $219 million and up to $313 million if conditions involving other social media companies are met, through what state Attorney General Josh Kaul called the “largest Big Tech settlement in the history of the country.”
The settlement resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention.
“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said. The settlement “will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm.”
“This resolution provides for several changes that prioritize kids’ well-being over Meta’s profits — as it should have been all along,” Kaul said in a statement. “This is a monumental step in changing the role of social media in kids’ lives for the better.”
Speaking at a Wednesday press conference, Kaul listed a variety of potential uses for the money, including school district grants for mental health programs, youth crisis intervention, after-school programs, digital wellness instruction or training for medical providers on the effects of interactive media use and body dysmorphia.
If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from individuals and school districts across the U.S. For the states, the settlement delivers money for programs to benefit kids’ mental health, including after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors.
Advocates cheered the new protections, including default time limits and the disabling of features such as “like” counts.
But “we cannot truly protect all children and teens until these protections are required on every platform and are permanent — that’s something only Congress can do,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project.
The settlement also includes payments resolving claims arising from Meta’s sharing of nonpublic Facebook user information with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, ahead of the 2016 election.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the money would be paid out over 10 years, with the state getting at least $1.5 billion. New Jersey expects to receive at least $525 million. Massachusetts said it was in line for at least $366 million. Virginia’s share is worth $353 million.
Meta urges rivals to adopt similar safety measures
Meta said in a blog post that it was “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”
The company urged rivals TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety measures.
The $17 billion settlement is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201 billion.
The agreement cuts short an ongoing court case involving California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued Meta in 2023. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among those expected to take the stand before a jury in federal court in California.
The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. The case also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.
The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began his testimony late Tuesday and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.
The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. In addition, nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.
New features to include time limits and curbs on push notifications
Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.
It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate” content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.
There will be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts.
An independent auditor will assess how Meta is implementing the safety features and how effective they are.
Meta put the settlement at $18 billion, a figure that apparently includes a large award for Texas.
The company said 30% of that amount — about $5.3 billion — will be released to states only if rivals YouTube and TikTok meet two conditions: implementing similar safety features, including a one-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block and age-assurance measures; and paying the same amount, split between the two companies.
Neither YouTube owner Google nor TikTok responded immediately to requests for comments.
Wisconsin part of bipartisan coalition
The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found that the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.
Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.
But child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said during his testimony last week that Meta consistently prioritized profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental well-being.
“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.
While the four states in the Oakland trial did not officially say how much they had been seeking, Meta said in a court filing that financial penalties in the case could amount to as much as $1.4 trillion — a figure legal experts said was unlikely, if not impossible.
Jim Malewitz of Wisconsin Watch contributed reporting.
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