It appears that state Rep. Marlin Schneider’s latest attempt to restrict access to online circuit court records did not gain the traction it needed to move forward. Following a public hearing back in October, Assembly Bill 418 failed to move out of the Committee on Corrections and Courts. 

That’s good news for Wisconsin’s open records advocates and those who rely on access to information from the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) at the state courts’ Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) Web site.  

But it may not be the end of Schneider’s efforts. 

Circuit court case information is available to anyone who walks inside courthouses throughout the state, but Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, is opposed to how easy it is to access those records online. His main concern is that open access to anyone promotes misuse of the information or mischief. 

The stalled bill only would have allowed online access to special groups of people – judges, law enforcement officers, attorneys and professional journalists – while restricting access to other members of the public. Anyone else would have had to submit a written request for access to the clerk of court or district attorney. 

The proposal would have created two odd distinctions. First, members of the public would still have been able to access records directly at the clerk of courts office, but would not have been able to access that same information online. Second, it would have established classes of people who could be trusted with online access while arbitrarily deeming others unworthy of that access. 

The bill has gone nowhere for nearly three months since the Oct. 4 public hearing. However, one of Schneider’s staff members has said that the Assemblyman is not deterred by the bill’s failure to move forward. Instead, he is drafting another piece of legislation to address his concerns about open access to online court records. 

We’ll simply have to wait and see what he comes up with next.