Sumi Court Hearing: LRB Deputy Chief of Staff Paints Troubling Picture of What Happened Last Friday

This morning I've been following Madison ACLU's excellent coverage via twitter of the TRO hearing in Judge Sumi's court.

They spent a good portion of the morning trying to nail down what the hell happened last Friday when the LRB made-up a "date of publication," despite not having the legal authority to do that.

The first witness was a 17 year veteran of the LRB, a staffer named Mike Barman. Barman testified that he's never seen a process like this for this law and that his understanding was that the LRB did NOT have the authority to set the date of publication.

The second witness was the LRB deputy chief of staff, Cathlene Hanaman, who painted an even more troubling picture of what happened last Friday, including these points:

• In here time at LRB, the LRB has never independently made-up a date of publication and has always gotten the date of publication from the Secretary of State.
• That she saw the 3/18 TRO rescinding publication. She said that in compliance of that order, they removed the date of publication from all of their records.
• Said that they got a letter from Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, requesting publication.
• Sen. Fitzgerald then requested a meeting on Friday and after the meeting, LRB Miller agreed to publish act.
• Asked if Fitzgerald was "insisting" the bill be published, Hanaman responded that "it was on the level of insisting."
• Said they tried to get around date of publication issue by putting a footnote next to the date of publication. She said that in her time at LRB, they had never put a footnote on a date of publication.