The Wisconsin Republican Party is standing by the open-records request it has lodged, seeking the e-mails of University of Wisconsin Professor William Cronon, who has written critical things about Gov. Scott Walker’s new law curtailing public employee unions. And furthermore, they say that the real villains here are the people who want to conceal important information about their government from the public.
“Like anyone else who makes an open records request in Wisconsin, the Republican Party of Wisconsin does not have to give a reason for doing so,” state GOP executive director Mark Jefferson says in a new statement Greg Sargent reports — with Jefferson then tearing into critics for trying to intimidate the GOP.
“I have never seen such a concerted effort to intimidate someone from lawfully seeking information about their government,” Jefferson writes. “Further, it is chilling to see that so many members of the media would take up the cause of a professor who seeks to quash a lawful open records request. Taxpayers have a right to accountable government and a right to know if public officials are conducting themselves in an ethical manner.”
Cronon lambasted the records request in a post on his blog Thursday night, saying that it threatened the principle of academic freedom: “It is chilling indeed to think that the Republican Party of my state has asked to have access to the emails of a lone professor in the hope of finding messages they can use to attack and discredit that professor. It makes me wonder if they have given even the slightest thought to what would happen to the reputation of this state and of its universities if they were to succeed in such an effort.”
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, Cronon has said that his blog — where a post on out-of-state conservative think tanks apparently triggered the Republicans open records request — is maintained privately, and has no affiliation with his academic department.
Here is the full text of the GOP’s statement:
“Like anyone else who makes an open records request in Wisconsin, the Republican Party of Wisconsin does not have to give a reason for doing so.
“I have never seen such a concerted effort to intimidate someone from lawfully seeking information about their government.
“Further, it is chilling to see that so many members of the media would take up the cause of a professor who seeks to quash a lawful open records request. Taxpayers have a right to accountable government and a right to know if public officials are conducting themselves in an ethical manner. The Left is far more aggressive in this state than the Right in its use of open records requests, yet these rights do extend beyond the liberal left and members of the media.
“Finally, I find it appalling that Professor Cronin seems to have plenty of time to round up reporters from around the nation to push the Republican Party of Wisconsin into explaining its motives behind a lawful open records request, but has apparently not found time to provide any of the requested information.
“We look forward to the University’s prompt response to our request and hope those who seek to intimidate us from making such requests will reconsider their actions.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.