MADISON, Wis. – 100 days have passed since the Republican Party of Wisconsin submitted an Open Records request for all correspondence from Governor Evers’ secret warren.spahn@wisconsin.gov account.
In that time, not a single email has been made available by the Governor’s office.
For context, this Open Records request came on the heels of both Evers and his staff promising complete transparency in the wake of revelations that Evers operated an official state email account under the ‘Warren Spahn’ alias. “All email correspondence are subject to, searched, and provided as responsive as required under Wisconsin’s Open Records law and, in fact, in every instance in which our office has provided such responsive records, we have explicitly made requesters aware of these addresses, and the purpose of their redaction, in providing responsive records,” said Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback.
Evers doubled down on that pledge in a December interview with Matt Smith of WISN, promising all correspondence with the Warren Spahn alias could be accessed with an Open Records request.
Well, it has been 100 days since the Republican Party of Wisconsin issued its Open Records request. And Evers has brazenly shirked Wis. Stat. § 19.35(4)(a), that states “as soon as practicable and without delay, either fill the request or notify the requester of the authority’s determination to deny the request in whole or in part and the reasons therefor.”
At this point, the question needs to be asked: What is Tony Evers hiding?
“Unless the email account actually belonged to the late Warren Spahn this whole time, there is no excuse for the foot dragging and stonewalling by Governor Tony Evers and his office. His blatant disregard for the law and lack of transparency should alarm Wisconsinites who believe in honest government.” —WisGOP Spokesperson Matt Fisher