Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the former Supreme Court justice he hired to review the 2020 election violated the state’s public records law by refusing to turn over some documents to a liberal group that requested them and delaying the release of others, a judge ruled Wednesday.
The ruling from Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington was issued a day after a report was issued by Michael Gableman, the former justice who is leading the Assembly Republicans’ taxpayer-funded review of the last presidential election.
The group American Oversight and news outlets have sought records in Gableman’s probe for months and not received many of the requested items. American Oversight filed three lawsuits against the Assembly officials after not receiving documents in a timely manner or at all in some cases.
Remington sided with the group in one suit Tuesday, ruling Vos and Gableman had “arbitrarily and capriciously denied or delayed access to records.” He wrote that Vos and Gableman should pay the legal fees for American Oversight — a ruling that could result in taxpayers picking up those costs.