Ethics law needs change to open up records

The first rule of government: Nothing is as simple as it seems.

The State Ethics Board has received a grant that will allow it to build a website with online access to financial disclosure forms filed by elected officials and others. Release.

That sounded revolutionary, because now, if you want to look at someone's disclosure statement, you are required to fill out a form, identifying yourself and saying on whose behalf you want the information. The Ethics Board then notifies the official that you have looked at his/her information. That can be a little intimidating.

I first assumed that once the website is up that requirement will be gone. Not only would you be able to access the information at 3 a.m. if you so choose, but you could get it instantly and anonymously.

Not so, unfortunately. Unless the legislature changes the law, if you want to see any individual's information the Ethics Board will still be required to ask you to fill out the form, and will still notify the person you're checking on. So no 3 a.m. business, and no anonymity.

Changing the law to eliminate that requirement seems like a no-brainer, but don't bet on it.

The state will look a little silly if it keeps the requirement in place, however, since you now can look at the filings online, anonymously and at 3 a.m. if you choose, from WisPolitics as well as the Wisconsin State Journal and Appleton Post Crescent.

Those newspapers simply requested all of the legislators' filings from the Ethics Board and then posted them on their own websites. So that takes a little of the bloom off the Ethics Board's announcement.

Let's hope that by the time the Ethics Board site is online in early 2006 the law will have been changed to reflect the fact that we are living in the 21st Century, with information much more accessible -- as it should be.