Legislative Republicans continue to challenge Governor Tony Evers over a recording that was made public because of an open records request.
Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders says the issue is that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald did not expect to be recorded.
“I’m not so sure that it wouldn’t have been a better process if the whole thing had been done in the open. I mean people behave better when they know they’re being watched so I don’t understand why there’s such a need for secrecy about a communication like that.”
Lueders says that even if there’s no documentation about who actually made that recording, it’s probably legally a moot point because only one person who was part of that call needed to consent to it being made.
“I don’t know how you record a conversation among people without someone who is in on that conversation being aware of it. They would have had to facilitate it or allow it in some way.”
The law also doesn’t require any specific documentation for that consent. Lueders says while this is an unusual situation, if someone had simply taken down a transcript there would be no issue.
So far the Evers administration has not identified who the person that made the recording was, only that it was being handled internally.