Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 8. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 4:59 PM for 9h 44m 39s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter with 50.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1945, the Battle of the Bulge ends in an Allied victory.
Patrick Marley reports ‘I have no idea’: Vos attorney did not monitor Michael Gableman’s compliance with open records law in his election review:
A lawyer for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos testified Monday he had done little to ensure the contractor overseeing a Republican review of the 2020 election had turned over all documents that were responsive to a series of public records requests from a liberal group.
The testimony from Vos’ staff attorney, Steve Fawcett, caught the attention of Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, who started the day’s proceedings by saying she didn’t understand why Republicans have provided so few records in response to requests from American Oversight.
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The state’s open records law says that public officials are responsible for obtaining documents from their contractors in response to requests from the public.
In her November ruling, Bailey-Rihn determined that Vos was obligated to obtain and turn over emails, calendars, reports and other documents from Gableman’s office from last summer.
Gableman’s initial contract with the Assembly requires him to keep a weekly report of the findings of his review. Gableman publicly released a report in November but has never made available any weekly reports.
Asked if Gableman has been writing weekly reports, Fawcett said, “I have no idea.”
The judge expressed surprise that Fawcett does not know whether Gableman is producing those reports given that the contract names Fawcett as the “point of contact” between Gableman and the Assembly.
Gableman is a cypher. What is his goal? He is behaving in reckless and nakedly partisan fashion that makes his former stunts on the WI SC look positively restrained. And they were far from restrained..
He, and by extension, Vos, are not even trying to hide the grift. They are without any sense of embarrassment.
Gerrymandering has not been kind to our state. In any rational state Vos would not be anywhere near this level of power.
Vos: a weak man carried along with a red tide. Gableman: ‘utter loon’ seems to fit.