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Whoever wins the Nov. 3 election to become Wisconsin’s next governor — whether it be Republican Tom Tiffany or Democrat David Crowley — will inherit a state whose long tradition of open government is replete with opportunities for improvement. 

With that in mind, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council last month sent questionnaires about government transparency to both candidates. Crowley answered our questions while Tiffany did not. 

Here’s a roundup of where the candidates stand when it comes to your right to know, drawn from Crowley’s responses and from what he and Tiffany have said on the campaign trail.

Let’s begin with common ground. Both Crowley and Tiffany say they support ending a legal loophole that exempts state legislators from record retention rules that are in place for all other state and local government officials. This loophole presently allows elected members of the state Assembly and Senate to delete emails and other files at will to prevent their release, absent a pending records request.

Crowley and Tiffany also say they oppose nondisclosure agreements between data center developers and local governments.

In his response to our questionnaire, Crowley said his administration would post commonly requested information online, monitor records processes across agencies and review records request procedures at least annually. He would also require that appointees receive training on the public records and open meetings laws and “make sure the agencies responsible for public records and open meetings compliance have the funding and staffing they need to do that work well.”

Asked about potential changes to the public records and open meetings laws, Crowley said he supports increasing the location fee threshold — a provision in the law allowing custodians to charge location fees only when they are $50 or more — which has not been updated since 1981.

Although Tiffany did not respond to the council’s questionnaire, he has made several campaign promises related to government transparency. Tiffany said he would improve a state data portal to “make it easier for taxpayers to search and understand state spending.” He promised to create agency dashboards that would show “taxpayers where their money is going, what services agencies are providing, and the results taxpayers are receiving.” Tiffany’s spokesperson also said that Tiffany, if elected, would “set clear response-time standards for open records requests.”

As a state senator, Tiffany in 2015 voted for a proposal that would have made it easier for lawmakers, the governor and other agencies to withhold records from the public. The measure was rescinded after intense public outcry. (Tiffany later apologized for his vote, saying “Quite honestly, I am embarrassed by the event.”)

Beyond the public records and open meetings laws, Crowley supports legislation targeting strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), used to retaliate against individuals and news outlets for engaging in protected activities. The state Assembly in February passed an anti-SLAPP bill, but it died in the Senate. Wisconsin is one of just 10 states without such protection.

Crowley also supports spending taxpayer dollars on WisconsinEye, a public affairs network like C-SPAN, as it works to find a sustainable funding model. “Having served in the State Legislature and now as County Executive, I’ve seen firsthand how important it is for Wisconsinites to have direct access to their government — it strengthens both transparency and public participation,” Crowley said.

Tiffany did not answer our questions on these topics.

Like government transparency, the values of press freedom and free expression are pillars of the broader project of representative democracy. On Sept. 24, Tiffany’s staff blocked two Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters from a campaign event alleging bias in coverage. Afterward, he insisted, “I’ve always had an open policy in regards to the media.”

Read Crowley’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. 

Your Right to Know: Contenders for governor weigh in on open government is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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 come under scrutiny 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.

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.

Your Right to Know: More money is needed for records access, Attorney General Josh Kaul says is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A few weeks ago, Wisconsin State Journal reporter Chris Rickert was using his cellphone to scan records in the office of the Dane County clerk of circuit court, when an office staffer informed him that this was not allowed. 

Rickert complied, but followed up with an email to the office’s clerk of courts, Jeff Okazaki, noting that he and the paper’s former courts reporter had routinely done this to avoid the mandatory $1.25 per-page charge for copies made by office staff. “We have not been secretive about scanning the documents and no one else has ever told us not to,” he wrote.

Okazaki, in reply, explained that while the public can inspect documents for free using the office’s terminals, any copies must be made by staff for the statutory fee. He cited a 2014 opinion by then-state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen stating that clerks of court and registers in probate cannot charge for copies made using personal devices such as a camera phone or handheld scanner, but can “choose whether to allow an individual to make copies in this manner.” Okazaki said most county clerk’s offices, including Dane’s, promptly disallowed this practice, noting that the office has long had a “No Cell Phones!” sign posted in its records room.

But Carlo Esqueda, who headed the office from 2007 to late 2023, shortly before Okazaki was appointed to the post, says it “wasn’t my policy to prohibit people from taking photos of the screens in the records center.” He says the sign about cellphones likely predated the 2014 opinion and was not about preventing people from using them to scan court records: “My recollection is that we just didn’t want folks carrying on phone conversations in that room where people are trying to concentrate on reading.”

In my four decades as a reporter, always working for cash-strapped media outlets, I have rarely forked over the $1.25 per-page copy fee set by statute for court records. In recent years, that has meant snapping photos of court records, mostly in Dane County. If anyone had objected, and no one ever did, I would have simply resumed doing what I did, back in the days before everyone had cellphones equipped with cameras — copy relevant sections from the records by hand. 

In other words, barring frugal requesters like me from making copies means additional labor and inconvenience, and potentially hours spent at terminals others might be waiting to use. But it will not necessarily generate additional revenue for the clerk’s office. (Rickert says he is now paying the per-page fee for some records and “taking notes on other, less important stuff.”)

Okazaki, who is running unopposed for a four-year term this fall, insists he has “provided no changes, updates or new policies regarding or related to the use of personal electronic devices to copy court records” and that any enforcement has come from “staff operating under existing policy and training.” He says there may have been instances in which violations went “unnoticed at the time.” And he wonders how anyone could see the “No Cell Phones!” sign and think it was OK to use a cellphone to take photos of records. (Well, one reason might be that this sign goes on to ask visitors to “respect others” in the room by exiting to the lobby to use their phones.)

But even if clerks are within their rights to adopt this prohibition, consistently or otherwise, that doesn’t make it a good idea. Letting people make their own copies, as the AG’s opinion expressly allows, is a harmless practice that reduces the workload of office staff and removes a potential barrier from people seeking to obtain public records for which they are, as taxpayers, already paying. A commitment to openness should trump the ability of government agencies to rake in money. 

Court records are among the most important public records we have. Clerks of court should not be making it harder or cost-prohibitive for members of the public to access them. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, editor-at-large of The Progressive magazine, is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Let the public copy court records is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s new dashboard tries to make campaign finance information more accessible to the public. It cost $285,000 to build and will cost more than $270,000 to maintain over two years, plus another $20,000 to eliminate erroneous and duplicative records, according to Daniel Carlton, administrator of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. 

“The biggest gain for the public is that the new website has much easier and more complete access to reported activity,” says Carlton. “It’s presented in a much more transparent, easy-to-navigate way than ever before.” The website’s tagline? “Welcome to Sunshine.” 

As a reporter, I remember scraping through campaign finance reports under the old system, trying to find information about state legislative campaigns. The website was slow and frequently froze up. Campaign finance information was uploaded via PDF. Sorting through the data was not fun. 

The new dashboard was launched a year ago, in August 2025, and the coming Aug. 11 primary and the Nov. 3 election will present key opportunities to test it out. You can use the portal — at campaignfinance.wi.gov — to search for information on state candidates, including governor, attorney general and state legislator. 

The site tracks individual candidate’s donors and recipients. You can also see how candidates spend (or “disburse”) the money they raise on such things as media, campaign staff and polling. You can find donors and easily see what other candidates they’ve given to. There are many other ways to filter information. To confirm your information, you can download the actual reports submitted by the campaigns. 

As is often the case, the data isn’t always perfect. This spring, while reporting on a circuit court race, I used data from the Ethics Commission, confirming it in the actual campaign finance report. That data, according to the campaign manager, was wrong; it showed the campaign of a state Supreme Court justice donating more than the $6,000 maximally allowable for a circuit court election.

The campaign manager promised to correct this error in April, blaming the new reporting website. When asked again ahead of the most recent filing deadline, in July, he again promised to correct it. It has still not been corrected. 

Blowback over erroneous campaign finance reports recently forced Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez out of the race for governor. 

Carlton says typos and imperfect recordkeeping can create multiple entities when there should be one. ActBlue — a PAC that helps Democrats fundraise — is a good example. A filer can accidentally type “Act Blue” or “ActBlur,” which would be logged as separate entities. 

The Ethics Commission has built a tool to “de-duplicate” entries like these. So far, it has reduced duplicative entities by 78% — from 12 million down to roughly 2.6 million. Carlton says the extra cost to streamline the data was “well worth it.” 

“Staff is watching for obvious duplications and trying to deduplicate them after reporting deadlines,” says Carlton. “Of course, anyone that identifies duplicates can let us know and we can fix them quickly.” But a challenge of the system, he adds, is that “many users input data without training or experience, which can lead to data integrity issues. The system has to be set up to try to keep entities separate, but there is no perfect way to do that.”

Like with any new technology, the site comes with some growing pains. But the state should be lauded for trying to make campaign finance information — famously a shadowy process with plenty of loopholes — more accessible to the public.

Chali Pittman is a staff writer at Isthmus newspaper and a member of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the council.

Your Right to Know: Campaign finance site a big improvement is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.