I've been able to listen to most of this morning's testimony in the Dane County District Attorney's case regarding the quickly passed budget repair bill.
A good source of live Tweeting is here, courtesy of Dane County Supervisor Analiese Eicher.
This morning's testimony tried to lay out the chronology of events on March 9, the day that the conference committee was called on short notice.
Some highlights:
- Rob Marchant, chief clerk of the Senate, testified that there had been a meeting at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau on March 7 about the possibility of calling a conference committee. No discussion of the meeting notice. Marchant said that he didn't think a "consensus" had been created about how to proceed with moving the bill to final passage. (Remember the 14 Democratic senators were still out of the state at this point, and the Senate Republicans couldn't vote on a fiscal bill without at least one more member to form a 20-person quorum.)
Apparently there was a March 9 meeting at about 2:30, according to Marchant. That's where the decision to notice a 4 p.m. meeting for a conference committee was discussed. (I'm a little fuzzy on this but I'll check my transcript for clarification. Maybe it's not memaybe the testimony was fuzzy.)
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Marchant testified that although the statutes call for 24-hour notice of meetings, and there's no legislative rule that allows for it, either, "custom, usage and precedent" allows for hearings to be called on a shorter notice. Hmmmm...
Was there any reason the conference committee couldn't have posted a notice on March 9 for a meeting on March 10? Marchant said no. Did SenFitz give a reason? Not that I recall. RepFitz? Not that I recall. Anyone from the Senate? Not that I recall, Marchant testified.
- Edward Blazel, Senate Sergeant at Arms, testified that he was told to have the Senate parlor read for a conference committee to be held at 6 p.m. on March 9. The room, adjacent to Senate Chambers, can only hold legislators, staffers, media, and about 20 members of the public. Other alternatives--such as the Senate Chambers, which has a gallery that seats about 96, and the Assembly Chambers, which has a gallery that seats about 120-150were not being used at the time. Basically, the Dane County lawyers are showing that the Republicans wanted to shut out the public from this allegedly public meeting.
- Daniel Blackdeer of the Capitol Police testified that there were officers in the Senate parlor, gallery, vestibule, staircase in case they needed to remove the senators. The building closes at 6 p.m. on weekdays. Then there was a long conversation about the public's access to the capitol since January. Short story: the public's access has been reduced in the past few months. The attorney asked, Have you ever seen metal detectors, armed officers, lines, only two open entrances to the capitol? "I have not," Blackdeer responded.
- Richard Judge, chief of staff to Minority Leader Peter Barca, testified that he heard about the conference committee from SenFitz's aide, but didn't know the subject of the conference committee. He then read an email sent to him from Jeff Rank. Then there was a long back-and-forth about announcements made over the loudspeaker that tell the public that the capitol will close at 6 p.m. They're real, live announcements, apparently. The gist of this is that the public was told to leave the capitol because it would close at 6 p.m. Then Judge testified that he received a stack of petitions that were signed by 2,967 members of the public who said that they had been denied access to the capitol.
The hearing will resume at 1:30. You can catch a live stream of it at Wisconsin Eye (unfortunately I can see it but not hear it) or live audio from WTDY in Madison.
Update: After hearing testimony from members of the public who were not granted access to the conference committee on March 9, discussion then turned to the absent defendants (legislators) who have legislative immunity until after the session is over.
How to proceed?
Judge Sumi found that she had heard nothing to warrant the lifting of the temporary restraining order. She asked the attorneys to do some more research on liability and damages and other legally technical stuff. Unless the absent lawmakers decide to let Sumi make a decision without their appearance in court, the temporary restraining order is still in effect.
