Civil Justice Council asks Judicial Council for records

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The Wisconsin Civil Justice Council has requested more public records from the Judicial Council.

The Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a group of business organizations and trade groups that bills itself as working to promote fairness in the state’s civil justice system, sent its second public-records request on Friday to the Judicial Council, a 21-member independent body that studies and proposes changes to court procedures and policies.

Earlier the same week, the Civil Justice Council had sent the state’s budget-writing committee a memo saying it was opposed to any attempt to direct resources to the Judicial Council, which it deemed “an arm of the plaintiff’s bar.”

Two years ago, Gov. Scott Walker had used the state budget to strip the Judicial Council of its staff attorney and entire budget after council members approved a raise for their then-staff attorney, April Southwick. Since then, the Judicial Council has been looking for ways to get that budget back.

At a meeting on May 20, council members discussed the possibility of asking the Legislature to attach the Judicial Council to the Legislative Council, a nonpartisan state agency that, among other things, provides legal advice and services to the state Legislature and its committees.

On Thursday, Van Wanggaard, a council member and Republican state senator, responded with his own letter to the committee, asking it, among other things, to ignore the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council’s memo.

Now, the Civil Justice Council is asking for records involving the Judicial Council members’ discussions in response to the Civil Justice Council’s memo, their discussions in drafting Wanggaard’s response and their discussions about getting funding in the budget and about looking for ways to place the Judicial Council under the Legislative Council.

This is the second time the Civil Justice Council has requested records from the Judicial Council. The last time, in January, the Civil Justice Council had sought records related to 2017 Act 235, which made a slew of changes to the state’s civil-litigation rules.

The Civil Justice Council was a big supporter of that legislation. Follow @erikastrebel