Wisconsin Transparency Project, FOX6 sue Evers for emails

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The Wisconsin Transparency Project and Milwaukee TV station FOX6 are suing Gov. Tony Evers for his emails. The open-records lawsuit alleges Evers is refusing to provide copies of his emails and unlawfully insisting he won’t produce the emails until the TV station provides search terms.

In September, an investigative reporter at FOX6 filed a request for all of the governor’s emails, his calendars and his chief of staff’s emails for a four-week period as part of a regular “spot check” record request. The lawsuit says the governor’s deputy chief of staff and assistant legal counsel told the reporter that all email requests would be denied if they didn’t contain search terms. The station argues this meant requestors would have to know the contents of the emails before requesting them.

The reporter then asked for a week of emails and was met with a denial for the same reason. A request for a day of emails was at first denied, but within 10 minutes of the lawsuit being filed on Tuesday, the station said Evers’ deputy chief of staff had sent 25 pages of emails from the requested day.

Tom Kamenick, founder and president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, said the governor’s denial is unlawful. He said state law only requires requestors to provide a limitation on time frame or subject matter, not both. The lawsuit asks Evers to provide all the requested records. Evers’ office has 45 days to file its answer. Follow @WLJReporter