Wisconsin Eye is offline. State Republicans are making matters worse.
With the state's public affairs network down, GOP leadership in the state legislature are enforcing an antiquated ban on photographing, filming or recording what's happening in the state Capitol.
The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan. 13, the Wisconsin State Assembly held a floor session. But for the first time in nearly two decades, the floor session was not broadcast live online on Wisconsin Eye.
Wisconsin Eye, the nonprofit, nonpartisan public affairs network that’s essentially the state’s version of C-SPAN, officially went offline on Dec. 15 due to a lack of funding. Since, they have launched a GoFundMe campaign hoping to raise $250,000 to bridge a financial gap and bring back its programming on a temporary basis. So far, it has raised just over $12,000.
Losing Wisconsin Eye is devastating news for those who follow state government — and for those who care about transparency, good governance, and public access to the workings of elected officials. Wisconsin Eye has been an indispensable resource since its inception in 2007, offering a live look inside the state Capitol and state government like never before, with video livestreams of everything from committee hearings and floor sessions in the state legislature to oral arguments at the Wisconsin Supreme Court to all sorts of other political events happening around the state. Even their frequently-updated online schedule had been the go-to resource to find out what was happening in Wisconsin politics and state government on any given day. You cannot overstate how important Wisconsin Eye has been to the state.
So, as the calendar turned from 2025 to 2026, state government entered this post-Wisconsin Eye world. Losing transparency and real-time video access to what’s happening in state government was invariably going to be a real problem.
That problem was soon made worse. Republican leadership in the state legislature began enforcing a set of rules — Assembly Rule 11, Assembly Rule 26, and Senate Rule 11, according to the Wisconsin Examiner — which essentially bar members of the public from recording, photographing or filming legislative proceedings, only allowing credentialed members of the media to do so.
Losing the invaluable resource that is Wisconsin Eye is one thing, but banning any members of the public from documenting what’s happening is quite another. This is an attack on transparent government and on the public’s ability to know what our elected officials are doing. The state Capitol is “The People’s House” — at least it’s supposed to be. These actions from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu are taking the people away from the process. That couldn’t be more wrong.
Last week, State Rep. Clinton Anderson, a Democrat from Beloit, issued a press release about this newly enforced rule, saying “Assembly Republicans barred members of the public and legislators from recording committee proceedings.” On Jan. 7, he said, he livestreamed a hearing for the Committee on Local Government “with no issues,” but a day later, a member of his staff began livestreaming the Committee on Agriculture, and after about two minutes, committee chair Travis Tranel, a Republican from Cuba City, instructed people in attendance to stop recording, saying, “Please don’t videotape unless you are a member of credentialed media.”
That was Anderson’s first time hearing of this rule, he said in a brief interview with The Recombobulation Area.
“I don’t see why we can’t record these things,” he said. “We’re in a public meeting. If a citizen did it, I wouldn’t care. But it was really disappointing to see us say we’re going to put the clamps on this.”
So, why are Republican leaders now enforcing these antiquated rules?
A spokesman for Speaker Vos told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they are “simply reaffirming the long-established rules of the Assembly,” are still allowing credentialed media to attend and record meetings, and are continuing to maintain records of votes and written testimony.
On Jan. 7, State Sen. Devin LeMahieu, the Republican Majority Leader from Oostburg, distributed a message via email from Senate Chief Clerk Cyrus Anderson with the subject line, “Recording and Distribution of Recordings of Committee Proceedings.” In that email, obtained by The Recombobulation Area, it outlines the Senate’s policy on recording of committee meetings, which is similar to what we’ve been seeing (well, hearing about) in the Assembly, but also says, “Senate staff are generally exempt from Senate Rule 11(7), but have additional restrictions when it comes to the distribution of audio/video recordings of elected state officials other than that staff person’s appointing authority.”
Two things here: 1) Enforcing these rules is a choice. It would be a simple, easy step for legislative leaders like Vos and LaMahieu to issue a statement noting the change in not having Wisconsin Eye present at the Capitol, acknowledging the existence of this rule, and saying they are evaluating long-term options, but that they do not want people’s access to the proceedings of government work to be impeded by outdated rules. And 2) Couldn’t they just change this rule at any time?
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein suggests as such, saying in a statement provided to The Recombobulation Area, “The people of Wisconsin expect and deserve their State Government to be as accessible and transparent as possible. At the moment, it is not. We should change this rule which is two decades old to reflect modern and current circumstances. I am hopeful we can work with our Republican colleagues to find a way to make that change as quickly as possible.”
Let’s not forget: Wisconsin Eye was launched in 2007. At that time, social media, smart phones, and streaming video were in their infancy. There’s a world of difference from what could be done in 2007 and what can be done now, in 2026.
The media has changed dramatically in that time, too. Social media and new technologies have given rise to all sorts of options for independent media, and smart phones have given anyone the opportunity to act as a citizen journalist, at least in some form. Legacy media has evolved in a myriad of ways, too. This policy is not only bad on its merits when it comes to transparency and accessibility in government, it fails to recognize the realities of how significantly the media has changed over the last 20 years.
But perhaps what it comes down most to is accountability. Republican legislators clearly don’t want to be held accountable for what they say in committee hearings.
About two years ago, a video clip of a Republican legislator comparing women to farm animals during a debate on abortion that came from Wisconsin Eye went viral on social media. A source close to the matter tells me that this led to a phone call from Republican legislators to Wisconsin Eye, and while no requests were made to ultimately remove the clip, it was clear that Republicans were “paying attention” to the social media distribution of clips like this, and that they were “not happy” about it. It’s far from the only clip that has gone viral showcasing problematic comments from GOP legislators. Perhaps Republicans never actually wanted people to see what they are saying in the legislature in the first place.
That’s what it seems like the enforcement of these antiquated rules is really about. Beyond curtailing transparency and making the workings of government less accessible to people across the state, it’s about Republican legislators looking to evade accountability — and doing so when their legislative majority is on the line in ways it has not been for a generation.
Republicans’ gerrymandered maps were in many ways about evading accountability from the voters, too, drawing themselves an essentially permanent majority so they could never truly be held accountable. So many of the actions the Vos Era Republicans have taken has been about insulating themselves from the voters — from the people. So, too, is this latest action. The Assembly Speaker can say all he wants about supporting Wisconsin Eye, but actions speak louder than words. He is the one who can take action on this, anytime. The fact that he hasn’t speaks volumes.
In a Facebook post this week, State Rep. Robyn Vining said that in a committee meeting, a Republican legislator said she wasn’t allowed to record the meeting because they “didn’t want their words being used against them ‘later this year’.”
This should be setting off alarm bells. These legislators should never forget that they serve the people of Wisconsin, and their position as an elected official is not granted to them, it is earned. What they say and do in committee hearings or open sessions should be used to hold them accountable on the ballot later this year.
It sure seems like it is to once again avoid accountability. Dig down further and ask why Republican leadership would want to block people from photographing, filming or livestreaming committee hearings, and it’s not going to lead to a place we should want our government to be.
Anyone who cares about transparency and public access to state government — Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike — should come together and denounce these latest actions from GOP leadership. The state should also work to fund Wisconsin Eye and return this invaluable service for the benefit of the people of Wisconsin. Republican leadership needs to end this nonsense now.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he became the Political Editor of Civic Media. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 23 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer and at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social.
Strong piece on how removing Wisconsin Eye created a vacuum that leadership immediately filled with opacity. The Rep saying they dont want words used against them later this year is basically admitting the quiet part out loud, accountability is the threat not documentation. Had a similar dynamic in local govt where removing livestreams didnt reduce controversey it just made it harderfor residents to verify what actually happend.
I hope Wisconsin Democrats can flip both houses of the legislature and hold the governorship. Maybe then, this can be addressed.