MADISON – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir is facing scrutiny about a 2014 open records case that cost Wisconsin taxpayers $15,000, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The case is the subject of a recent campaign ad run against Vukmir.
In 2013, the liberal Center for Media and Democracy asked Vukmir for records regarding her work for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that works with corporations to draft proposed legislation. The state senator from Brookfield turned over a small number of records and was sued by the Center, which argued she held back some documents she was required to release, the Journal Sentinel‘s Patrick Marley reported. Vukmir, who initially argued she couldn’t be sued during the two-year-long legislative session, ultimately settled with the center, agreeing to release more records and have the state pay $12,500 in legal fees and $2,500 in damages.
Vukmir handled the situation differently than state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, who recently paid his $30,000 legal tab himself after initially saying he would have taxpayers pick it up, Marley wrote. Kooyenga, a Brookfield Republican now running for Vukmir’s state Senate seat, was sued for removing a sign from the state Capitol that a protester had permission to display.
The story also notes cases during which Democrats have racked up legal bills for taxpayers in open records cases. Rep. Jonathan Brostoff (D-Milwaukee) in May left taxpayers with a legal bill of about $2,000 to cover costs related to an open records settlement. Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) in 2014 racked up more than $230,000 in taxpayer expenses in a records-related legal fight.
