Wisconsin lawmakers who passed a law taking away Attorney General Josh Kaul's power to settle lawsuits without their permission are refusing to give Kaul assurances of confidentiality he says are needed to resolve litigation without jeopardizing taxpayers. The move was made as part of an unprecedented closed-door meeting of the Legislature's finance committee that was convened at Kaul's request to discuss action on a multi-state lawsuit — one that lawmakers would debate without even knowing its nature. The result was a bizarre display between Democrats and Republicans on the committee arguing in front of reporters who didn't know why the lawmakers were meeting. The lawmakers didn't know either. Democrats decried the episode as an example of an ill-crafted law that forces Kaul to choose between violating attorneys' confidentiality rules or violating a state law requiring him to bring lawsuits to a committee that is subject to open government laws. Republicans defended the law, saying without it the public would continue to be shut out of the process to settle lawsuits involving taxpayer money — something previous attorneys general had the power to handle privately.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
It looked like a conventional public meeting. Early in the evening on the last night of July, a city employee in Denver, stood before half a dozen people in a community center at the edge of Cheesman Park, a lush 81-acre green space in the Capitol Hill neighborhood where joggers were making their rounds. The room was small, stuffy and sparsely furnished, with round tables pushed together under white fluorescent lights. Trays of cheeses, cookies, fruits and pita wraps languished in the corner, preoccupying a single, unrelenting fly. Yet this wasn't a typical community forum, and Rowena Alegría wasn't a typical city employee. "I am the chief storyteller for the city and county of Denver," she told the group, and she had come for one of her regular "storytelling labs." They're a chance for residents to record personal stories about their ever-changing city, using text, audio and video to help local government preserve community history. The office opened to skepticism in the local press. Denver's alt-weekly Westword called into question how the chief storyteller "just happens to be a former Hancock aide," raising concerns that she was running "a taxpayer-funded office designed to polish PR for Denver." But Alegría, who was a longtime editor at The Denver Post before joining Hancock's team in 2012, is quick to say her storytelling is "community engagement, not PR."
Governing
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said on Thursday it asked Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to unblock any Twitter users she has barred on the basis of their political views. The practice “is unconstitutional, and we are writing in the hope of dissuading you from engaging in it,” the institute wrote to Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term congresswoman from New York who has gained a national spotlight for her championing of progressive views. Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter that “less than 20 accounts are blocked” out of more than 5.2 million followers and “0 are my constituents.” She was sued in July by former Democratic New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind for blocking him from her personal @AOC account. The Knight Institute, which successfully sued President Donald Trump over his decision to block dozens of users on Twitter from his personal @realdonaldtrump account, argued that Ocasio-Cortez’s account “is a ‘public forum’ within the meaning of the First Amendment” guaranteeing free speech and noted that her tweets staking out political positions “have made headline news.” The institute said Ocasio-Cortez was within her rights, however, to block Twitter users who had posted threatening speech.
Reuters
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