Conservatives to court on GAB’s secrets: ‘Enough is enough’

[Virginia Foulk]

Conservatives to court on GAB’s secrets: ‘Enough is enough’

By M.D. Kittle  /   November 9, 2015  /   News  Wisconsin Watchdog.org

MADISON, Wisconsin — The state Government Accountability Board, on the verge of extinction, apparently still has much to hide.

The GAB, the state’s political speech regulator, continues to fight to keep sealed records related to its involvement in secret and unconstitutional investigations into dozens of conservative groups and the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker.

“Enough is enough. Plaintiffs respectfully request that this court find that the GAB has not met its burden of justifying continued secrecy relating to its conduct,” wrote attorneys for long-time conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and his Wisconsin Club for Growth in a new filing in the Waukesha County Court.

O’Keefe and the club assert the newly signed law reforming Wisconsin’s controversial John Doe procedure has “removed the shackles of John Doe secrecy from the plaintiffs” and the GAB’s “attempts at sealing must be overruled so that the public can gain immediate access.”

SECRET (SPEECH) POLICE: The state Government Accountability Board continues to fight the release of information surrounding its unconstitutional investigation into Wisconsin conservatives.

Last month, Waukesha County Judge Lee Dreyfus Jr. opted against lifting the protective order on 182 pages of records from a lawsuit alleging the GAB overstepped its authority at taxpayer expe...in driving the politically charged John Doe investigation.

Dreyfus said the documents would probably come out in trial. A trial date hasn’t been set.

Following the judge’s decision, the two sides agreed on the release of heavily redacted documents. Only a few dozen pages filed under “Exhibit A” were made public.

Even those documents, however, revealed more information about the rogue agency, including the fact its double agent special prosecutor was “really questioning the validity” of the John Doe probe.

O’Keefe and the club want even more documents released, records they say will be quite embarrassing for a “nonpartisan” state agency its defenders still describe as a model in campaign finance, elections, ethics and lobbying oversight.

The Government Accountability Board has been less-than accountable to the public, attempting to hide behind what the plaintiffs describe as improper and “murky” legal concepts to keep the agency’s secrets sealed. In particular, O’Keefe and the club assert the GAB has made up the idea of “materiality,” a wideranging concept about what portions of the investigations are material and what portions aren’t in the plaintiffs’ pursuit of records release.

As a matter of law, the plaintiffs assert, the GAB’s “newly-invented justifications can have no role in deciding how much the Wisconsin public learns about the arguments and facts plaintiffs and defendants are presenting in this court. Nor do they justify attempts to cloak the GAB’s conduct from taxpayers.”

To cut through the delays and legal maneuvering, the court ordered a memorandum must be served within 10 days of any filing seeking sealing or public release of court documents. Both parties agree the subjects and targets of the GAB’s investigation should not be “further injured” by having identities revealed in the case, according to the plaintiffs’ filing, but the two sides disagree on what constitutes information about the process of the probe and actual “evidence” obtained.

The plaintiffs assert the GAB has provided “no explanation at all” for “large swathes of its secrecy demands.”

O’Keefe’s attorneys argue that none of the GAB’s three asserted bases for secrecy are recognized under Wisconsin law.

GAB attorney Paul Schwarzenbart did not immediately return a request for comment.

“(P)laintiffs respectfully request that this court allow plaintiffs to publicly file and disclose the disputed materials without further delay,” the filing states.

On Saturday, the Republican-controlled Senate voted along party lines to overhaul the Government Accountability Board, although a “compromise” will maintain two judges on a new Ethics Commission. The Assembly is expected to address that compromise at an extraordinary session scheduled Nov. 16.

Florida  >  Bloomberg’s back, this time with TV ads attacking state AGs on EPA regulation

Bloomberg’s back, this time with TV ads attacking state AGs on EPA regulation By Rob Nikolewski  /   November 9, 2015 

SPENDING $10 MILLION: Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched attack ads against attorneys general who oppose the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

 Michael Bloomberg wasn’t able to flip the Virginia Legislature last week, despite spending more than $2.4 million pushing gun control measures.

But the billionaire and former New York City mayor has jumped right back into the political arena, spending millions targeting attorneys generals in four states who are opposed to the Clean Power Plan, a sweeping regulation put forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Obama administration.

“These four attorneys general are trying to stop the president from doing something that I think is terribly important,” Bloomberg told the New York Times last week of the TV attack ads in Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri and Michigan. “I want the public to know what they’re doing.”

The commercials have already started in Florida, aimed at Attorney General Pam Bondi, who last month joined a group of elected officials in 27 states who have filed a lawsuit trying to block the Clean Power Plan from being implemented.

The ads are hard-hitting and personal. Here’s the 30-second spot that goes after Bondi:

YouTube
In no surprise, Bondi hit back at Bloomberg.

“Florida has a great and conscientious track record of improving its air quality and protecting its environment,” Bondi said in a statement. “Now a billionaire bully is attacking Florida, and 26 other states, for having the audacity of defending their citizens against the EPA’s heavy-handed and unlawful regulations, which will drastically increase Floridians power bills — something this billionaire clearly cares little about. This bully wants to defend the federal government; we want to protect the people we serve.”

The ads attack one Democrat — Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster — and three Republicans — Bondi, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel.

Produced by Bloomberg’s political action committee, Independence USA PAC, the TV spots are part of an advertising campaign that has a reported budget of more than $10 million.

More could be coming.

Howard Wolfson, longtime Democratic Party strategist and political adviser for Bloomberg, told the New York Times the ads are aimed at putting state AGs “on notice.”

Called the cornerstone of the the Obama administration’s environmental legacy, the Clean Power Plan marks the first federal measure to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s existing power plants and sets up new regulations for future plants.

Under the details of the CPP — which runs 1,609 pages — power plants must cut greenhouse gas emissions 32 percent by 2030 and states are required to come up with their own, individualized, emissions reduction plans and targets starting in 2022.

Critics say it’s an overreach by EPA and will cause utility prices to skyrocket.

EPA officials say the regulation is well within the agency’s purview and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said earlier this year, “for every dollar we invest in the plan, families will see $7 in health benefits.”

The CPP was officially put on the books in late October, but a group of states that recently expanded to 27 has joined in a lawsuit to keep the plan from being enforced.

The attorney general of West Virginia, one of the country’s biggest coal-producing states, is heading the litigation filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cir....

An opposing coalition of 18 states have come out in support of the CPP, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

“The lawsuits filed last week against the Clean Power Plan will not stop the decline of coal, given its unpopularity and increasingly unattractive economics,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “But when Attorneys General put the coal industry’s financial interests ahead of their constituents’ right to breathe clean air, we want their constituents to know about it — and these ads will help make sure they do.”

But there’s some question about whether Bloomberg’s political spending might hurt, instead of help, his cause.

While one Democrat for a Virginia Senate seat benefited from Bloomberg gun control media blitz and won, another lost and the Virginia Senate and House remained in the hands of Republicans.

“Memo to Michael Bloomberg: If you want to help Virginia Democrats, stay home,” wrote Washington Post contributor Peter Galuszka the day after the election, adding that voters in one of the hotly-contested Senate races did “not take kindly to a New York boo-bah telling them what they should do with their guns … They do not want the nanny state.”

But Bloomberg is an enthusiastic supporter of steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions and earlier this year formed the Clean Energy Initiative, a program that hands out grants to help states implement the CPP.

Koster joined the fight against the CPP last month, saying the regulation could cost Missouri ratepayers $6 billion. He is running for governor next fall.

“While a double-digit electric bill jump might not affect someone with Michael Bloomberg’s bank account, it would devastate seniors on fixed incomes, working families and small businesses across the state,” Andrew Whalen, Koster’s committee director in his run for governor, told the New York Times.

Bondi and Schimel are up for re-election in 2018. Schuette is in office through 2018 and cannot run again for AG because of term limits.

“You’ve got another limousine liberal telling all the rest of us we’ve got to tighten up our belts when we’ve already pulled it in a few more notches,” Schimel told radio station WTMJ in Milwaukee Monday morning.

“This is an out-of-state billionaire who first tried to take away your Big Gulps and now wants you to pay higher utility bills and put your job at risk,” John Sellek, director of public affairs for Schuette, told Michigan Live. “Next, he’ll be coming after your trucks and SUVs.”

“The lawsuits filed by these attorneys general are an assault on communities making progress across their states,” said Carl Pope, former executive director at the Sierra Club and now a climate adviser to Bloomberg.