(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Senate leadership is again asking for records related to the state’s Department of Justice and lawyers paid for through the Michael Bloomberg-funded New York University State Energy & Environmental Impact Center.
Earlier this year, a special committee led by Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, asked Attorney General Josh Kaul to stop using special assistant attorney generals paid with private funds.
The committee also asked for records related to the relationship between the Justice Department and what it calls outside influences. The committee believes the department did not conduct a new search for records after that request was made and instead only “turned over records already compiled from previous open records requests or disclosed during litigation.”
“Oversight is a core responsibility of the Legislature, and DOJ consciously chose to not turn over the records that the legislative committee originally requested,” Felzkowski said in a statement. “Wisconsinites deserve transparency, especially when it’s about outside influence in Wisconsin’s Department of Justice.”
Farm groups including the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative filed a lawsuit in February 2025 related to challenging the agreement between Wisconsin’s attorney general office and a special assistant attorney general paid for by the university group.
The groups say that the special interest attorneys deny the groups from equal protection under the law and provide access that other groups do not have to leverage their ideology.
The new request for information includes all records from the original information request along with information on a hiring freeze at the Department of Justice while the department brought in lawyers funded by outside groups.
