Racine Budget Hearing

In the past two weeks, the Joint Committee on Finance held four public hearings to discuss the governor’s proposed state budget plan. Governor Walker’s budget makes historically large cuts k-12 schools and to the UW-System, inadequately funding public education, increasing state aid to unaccountable voucher schools, and funds important transportation projects by taking on more debt.

To ensure the Racine community can speak out on the proposed budget, Assembly and Senate Democrats will host a public hearing in Racine on March 30th from 6PM – 8PM. We will take both oral and written testimony during the hearing. I encourage you to attend and make your voice heard. For me to better represent you here I need to know how the budget will impact your life.

          

Open Caucus Bill

Last week was Sunshine Week, a national initiative to open dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. In recognition of Sunshine Week and in honor of Wisconsin’s proud history of transparency in government, I am proposing a bill which would apply the open meetings law to our own legislative partisan caucuses.

Currently, under the open meetings law, meetings of state and local governmental bodies must be preceded by public notice, must be held in places that are reasonably accessible to the public, and must be open to the public at all times. The open meetings law, however, includes an exception for partisan caucuses of the Senate or Assembly. This bill deletes the exception in the open meetings law that makes the law inapplicable to a partisan caucus of the Senate or Assembly. It is important that the public be able to participate in this critically important aspect of the budget process.

Click here to learn more about Sunshine week and my bill to apply the open meetings law to our own closed-door caucus meetings in the State Capitol: http://bit.ly/1FTFN41 

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have questions about this or other issues. You may reach me toll-free at (888) 534-0066 or via email at Rep.Mason@legis.wi.gov.