Eau Claire Leader-Telegram. June 7, 2022.
Editorial: A public records win
Tuesday’s ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that the state’s health department could indeed release information on outbreaks of COVID was a win for open records.
The state had planned to release the names of businesses with more than 25 employees if the business had two or more employees test positive for COVID. But the release was opposed by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, and the lobbying organization’s efforts tied up the information for two years.
The court saw through the group’s claim that release of the records would “irreparably harm” business’ reputations. Nor did it accept the claim releasing the records would require individual consent from every single person whose records were included.
The objections amounted, more than anything else, to a “we don’t wanna do it” tantrum. The state never planned on identifying individuals, hence the requirement that businesses had to have at least 25 employees to even be on the list. The information was neither enough to identify individuals nor designed to attack any business.
That fact was key. The state argued, correctly, that aggregate numbers aren’t personally identifying information.
Today, it would be difficult to think of many businesses with 25 or more employees that didn’t have more than two people come down with COVID at some point. It is important that we remember such an outcome was almost unthinkable in mid-2020.
There was more at stake in this case than just the public health data. The ruling, which preserved a state appeals court’s 2021 decision, also rejected what was effectively a plea for prior restraint. American courts have long been hesitant to preemptively prohibit the publication of information by media outlets. This would have been a step beyond what provokes that hesitancy. It would have constrained the government from even releasing information that is clearly of and in the public interest.
We are concerned that three of the state’s supreme court justices were prepared to throw out this bedrock concept. Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who wrote the dissent, continued to insist the ruling could allow for the release of personal medical information. While she’s right that the public dissemination of confidential patient files could indeed do grievous harm to people, that sort of release wasn’t what the state was planning.
That explains why Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said in a written statement that the dissent aimed to “stir up unfounded fears.” Personal information was never at issue in this case, despite strident claims to the contrary.
While the outcome of the case is positive in that it rejected further efforts to restrict what information the government can release in such cases, the overall goal of the objections could well be said to be accomplished. This information, which people would likely have had significant interest in at the time of the initial 2020 request, has lost much of its immediacy.
Delaying results can have the same practical effect as denying them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was a finalist for the 2022 Golden Padlock Award, which is given annually to the most secretive public agency or official in the country. The nomination is a good example of killing a request by simply delaying.
In August of 2021 scientists and academic experts sought records relating to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. The FDA proposed doing so such a sluggish rate it would take an estimated 55 years to finish. A federal judge wasn’t impressed and ordered the FDA to release 12,000 pages in an initial batch and 55,000 per month thereafter.
We’ll find out whether the FDA won later this month.
Maintaining access to public records is critical for Americans, both because they serve as an indelible record of actions and because doing otherwise can only undermine faith in our institutions. When there are exceptions, it must be clear why the exception is being made. Vague explanations only feed the perception there is something being hidden, a result that is often more damaging than the release of the original documents.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has, even if narrowly, confirmed that “we don’t want to” is not an argument with legal merit. It made the right decision.
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Wisconsin State Journal. June 5, 2022.
Editorial: Responsible gun owners: Speak up
Gun owners and hunters, your state and nation need you.
You need to speak up.
Not for gun rights. The Second Amendment isn’t going anywhere. You can relax about that. Nobody is going to take away your ability to harvest deer, protect your family or fire powerful weapons in safe ways for fun.
Just the opposite is at risk: Too many in the state Legislature and Congress, mostly Republicans, are seeking looser restrictions on buying and carrying lethal firearms, or they’re resisting modest public safety precautions against the wishes of police. They’re doing so despite rising gun violence and mass shootings. That includes the horrific killing of 19 students and two teachers May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Seventeen others were injured.
Responsible gun owners have a powerful voice to influence those GOP lawmakers who kowtow to the most extreme interests. Those politicians seem to think their political survival depends on pandering to anything-goes gun groups.
It doesn’t. Most hunters in Wisconsin understand that constitutional rights are not absolute. They need to make that clear to their leaders, because the message isn’t getting through.
Please call and write your elected officials in support of sensible gun laws today. Urge them to pass legislation to protect your schools, churches, offices, streets and parks.
Just say what you believe and think is best.
For example, three-quarters of gun owners in Wisconsin favor universal background checks on all firearm purchases, including private and online sales, according to a statewide Marquette Law School poll.
If every responsible owner of a gun in Wisconsin who supports consistent background checks contacted their lawmakers with that message, the loopholes at gun shows and on the internet would close.
So please call your leaders today. Remind them that a proper background check could have stopped the man in 2012 who fatally shot three women, including his wife, at a Brookfield spa. The shooter couldn’t legally buy a gun, yet he purchased a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol from an online seller who wasn’t required to run a check. If the seller had, a lengthy restraining order would have prevented the sale.
If you are among the majority of gun owners who support “red flag” laws, speak up. These laws allow police to temporarily disarm people if judges agree they pose imminent danger.
With bipartisan support, Florida legalized risk protection orders following the 2018 school shootings that killed 17 and wounded 17 others at Douglas High School in Parkland.
Florida also raised the age for legally buying firearms from 18 to 21. The Parkland shooter was 19.
The shooter in Uvalde last month was 18 years old. He legally purchased an AR-style rifle and more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition to terrorize and kill students and staff at Robb Elementary.
If you are a gun owner who supports limits on magazines and clips, speak up. If you are a gun owner who understands the risk of untraceable ghost guns, speak up. Don’t let the National Rifle Association speak for you. The NRA is giving responsible gun owners a bad name.
Gun limits, of course, are only part of the solution. They won’t stop every shooting. Lots of other issues such as emotional trauma, mental illness, the pandemic, broken families, abuse, social media and security lapses contribute to chronic violence.
Yet firearms are central to America’s epidemic of mass shootings. They cannot be ignored.
Responsible gun owners in this hunting state must stand up and say something before the next unthinkable tragedy occurs. Their voices have significant pull with the politicians stalling reasonable laws to keep incredibly lethal weapons away from immature and unstable people.
