From Milwaukee’s JS Online:
Taxpayers will pick up the cost of defending two legislators embroiled in an open records fight with Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.
Legislative leaders agreed Tuesday to hire Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek to represent Sen. Dave Zien (R-Eau Claire) and Michael Best & Friedrich to represent Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford). They set no caps on the expenses.
Lautenschlager, a Democrat, sued the two last month after they declined to give her drafts of a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons.
The lawmakers insist the drafts were confidential at the time because the bill, AB 763, had not been introduced. Lautenschlager says the state’s public records law required them to provide copies because they already had shared an early version of the bill with gun-rights advocates.