Photo by David Bautista - Getty Images
Madison, Wisconsin - State Capitol Building in winter
On Monday Dec. 15, due to financial insolvency, Wisconsin Eye, the non-profit public affairs channel that served as the state’s answer to C-Span, took down its archive of government meeting footage and quit filming future legislative hearings, floor sessions and court hearings. Now, however, there is bipartisan legislation in the assembly to bring back Wisconsin Eye through public funding.
At a Thursday, Jan. 22 press conference, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Minority Leader Greta Neubauer notified the media of a bipartisan agreement to keep Wisconsin Eye afloat.
The agreement would grant Wisconsin Eye a $10 million endowment which was originally set aside in the 2023 budget. Wisconsin Eye was required to match the $10 million provided by the state to receive funding but failed to do so.
The 2025-2027 budget provided Wisconsin Eye with
$250,000 of the $10 million without a match requirement. If passed, the money would be put into a trust fund for the future solvency of the organization. Vos stated the trust fund will have a “revamped” board of directors. Interest alone from the trust fund will not cover the yearly operating costs for Wisconsin Eye— about $900,000 yearly—so the organization will be responsible for raising money to cover these expenses going forward.
No Filming Now?
Because of Wisconsin Eye’s absence, several floor sessions and an array of committee hearings have not been filmed and archived. Rules passed by the senate in 2005 and assembly in 2013 curtailed the public's ability to record legislative sessions and these rules are being stringently enforced by Republican leadership; Only credentialed media are allowed to film.
“The public has a right to observe the work of public officials in public hearings, and the lack of access for the last month has been frustrating,” explained Representative Ryan Clancy (D, 19th Assembly District, Milwaukee). “The problem is not just the lack of funding, but assembly Republicans’ refusal to allow the public to film in committees or to request that the state stream the proceedings of the assembly as the senate has requested and facilitated.
“I’ve seen Wisconsin residents, who drove for more than an hour to testify, show up to full committee hearing only to be turned away and leave, unable to witness their elected
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representatives weigh in on bills they wanted to weigh in on,” Clancy continued. “And as a legislator, I cannot be in more than one place at the same time. If I’m in one committee and need to hear the deliberations in another, I have to rely on reports from the media or staff, if they’re able to attend, rather than seeing it myself. We’ve also seen Republicans passing many bills through committee with far less public engagement while WisEye has been down. That lack of public transparency is worrying.”
Multiple Coverage
“Wisconsin Eye provided the ability to cover multiple meetings at once,” said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. The demise of “Wisconsin Eye is a huge loss for Wisconsin, transparency and government.”
While there is momentum in the assembly for this bill, it must also move through the senate where opposition may drag the bill down or alter it. “Giving the public access to see what we’re doing is important but … just blindly giving money to an organization that’s asking us for money, but not giving us any answers, is certainly not the solution at this time,” remarked Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Senate District 9).
Wisconsin Eye solicited large donor funds for the last two years, reaching out to 50 organizations with requests for proposals totaling $9.2 million; All were denied. At its inception the organization received most of its funding from conservative donors but has also received money from several liberal organizations and individuals.
Asked whether he thought political polarization was
responsible for the funding shortfalls, Lueders explained, “The model that has supported Wisconsin Eye is no longer viable.
“It is ludicrous to expect the function of public meeting recording to be performed by a non-profit and subject to the inconsistency of fundraising. WisEye was unique in this format, but there’s no reason for it to continue on as it has. The dedicated staff who have performed this work for many years should be hired on—either by the state directly or via public media, which also has the capacity to film and distribute out proceedings—and allowed to continue to provide this vital service, unfettered with the need to generate ad revenue or to plead for private donations. No member of the public should be having to watch an ad for the Realtors before watching the Committee on Housing, or to pay to see the work of the public officials whose salaries they already pay.”
Inquiries have also been raised about the salary of Jon Henkes, the President and CEO of Wisconsin Eye. An article by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported that Henkes was
previously earning a salary of $290,000, which was cut to $150,000 for 2025.
State Broadcasting?
Regardless of what happens to Wisconsin Eye, there is also legislation introduced by Representative Brienne Brown (D, 43rd district, Whitewater) to create a state broadcasting
company to replace the role Wisconsin Eye plays. The bill would create a state run “Public Affairs Network” providing $2 million for operating costs in its first year. The network would also be responsible for the years of video archived footage by Wisconsin Eye.
The bill says the organization would be governed in a non-partisan fashion and have a board that consisted of the governor, two appointees by the governor and four members of the legislature, working with the Educational Communications Board. Nearby states already have their own in-house systems to record the actions of their legislatures
that don’t rely on private entities. Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota record their legislative committee and floor sessions via their own chambers.
The conservative MacIver Institute views this bill as creating a conflict of interest in having the government be responsible for watching themselves, Democrats disagree. “Before I was a State Representative, I served as a Milwaukee County Supervisor for two years, and that serves as a model for what we could have at the state,” says Clancy. “County staff simply streamed, recorded and archived every committee meeting and every floor session … We should have that at
the state. There is no conflict of interest if the mandate is simply to show everything and to leave the analysis to other media.”
Wisconsin Eye, founded in 2007, is a private non-profit organization dedicated to an open and transparent government, with a non-partisan operation that allows Wisconsin residents to view their government in real time without a polarized lens. The company is looking to raise $250,000 to restart operations to close out the spring 2026 legislative session. So far the company received
just over $50,000 on its go fund me page.
