Court Opinion

ID: 9572846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:45:05.813823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:28.479508
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). This original action for declaratory relief challenges the legality of two closed-to-the-public meetings held by members of the joint committee on finance of the state legislature. At the first such meeting, a full quorum of the committee was present. At the second, one-half of the committee members were present, a “negative quorum” sufficient to block committee action. At both meetings, all committee members who were invited and attended were members of one political party. Both closed meetings were called to discuss matters that were to come before the full committee in its public sessions.
Where those participating in a closed-to-the-public session of a committee of the legislature are not members of a single political party, the court majority holds such secret sessions to violate the open meeting statute.1 The secret meetings convened to discuss or decide matters tó come before the committee or body in a public session are, the majority holds, “conferences,”2 which, if “designed to avoid” the open meeting law, are illegal under sec. 66.77.3 The majority holds such closed session or conference to be a violation of the open meeting law if (1) the full membership is present; (2) a quorum is *703present; or (3) one-half the membership, a “negative quorum,” is present. In each of the situations listed, the majority holds that the issue becomes whether or not the secret meeting was “designed to avoid” the requirements of the open meeting law. The writer agrees with these conclusions of the court majority, but would add that a secret session or conference of less than one-half of the members of a legislative committee or governmental body ought also be held to be illegal where there is present an intent to avoid the statute, plus the ability to control or determine a decision to be made at the public session of the committee or body.4 The conference of less than half of the members or of a minority group in the body may not qualify as a “meeting” of the body,5 but it can constitute a deliberate conspiring to violate the open meeting requirement, and that of itself is a violation of law.6 Given an “intent to avoid” and ability to influence or control decision-making, the writer would include in the proscription meetings of less-than-half of the membership of a governmental body.
However, the majority holds that, as to committees of the legislature, where those invited to and participating in a closed committee meeting belong to one political party, their secret session becomes a “partisan caucus,” exempted from the antisecrecy requirements by the open meeting law.7 The state legislature has set forth excep*704tions, eight of them, to its general mandate that: “No discussion of any matter shall be held and no action of any kind, formal or informal, shall be introduced, deliberated upon, or adopted by a governmental body in a closed session. . . .”8 The exception relied upon to validate the two secret sessions, here challenged, is sub. (g) exempting “Partisan caucuses of members of the state legislature.” The majority opinion finds the two secret or closed meetings, here challenged, to have been such “partisan caucuses,” and as such exempted from the requirements of the state open meeting law. The writer disagrees.
The majority holds that party members on a committee of the legislature may meet in advance and in secret to decide what is to be done at a subsequent public meeting of such legislative committee. At the same time, it holds that such a quorum of such committee, if involving members of both political parties, may not meet to discuss or decide in secret what the committee is to do, at least not “with intent to avoid the [open meeting] section.” Thus the caveat is limited to insisting that no one from another party or an independent be invited to the closed meeting. In reaching this somewhat startling result, the majority limits itself to construing the open meeting law itself. The writer would go further to include the constitutional mandate in this state against secrecy in the carrying out of its legislative function by the state legislature, to wit:
“Section 10. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings and publish the same, except such parts as require secrecy. The doors of each house shall be kept open except when the public welfare shall require secrecy. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days.”9 (Emphasis supplied.)
*705Keeping the doors open does not mean leaving them ajar only when roll calls are taken and votes are recorded. Keeping the doors open requires their not being locked at any stage of the lawmaking process “except when the public welfare shall require secrecy.” Keeping the doors open refers to committee sessions, as well as sessions of the full senate or assembly, and includes the debating and deciding on legislation as well as the voting and recording of votes. The majority opinion notes that some states do not include the legislature in their open meeting law. The state constitution in our state makes such self-exclusion from an antisecrecy law meaningless. The majority states that our legislature has made the exceptions and “. . . drafted them to its own purposes.” The state constitution does provide that: “Each house may determine the rules of its own proceedings,”10 but that right is subject to and limited in our state by the constitutional mandate that doors of the legislature be kept open during the lawmaking process. It is not correct to assume or imply that, if our state legislature had exempted itself from the provisions of its open meeting law, it could conduct its lawmaking function in secret. A constitutional mandate does not need legislative reenactment to remain operable.
As to proceedings of the legislature, in this state, public proceedings are constitutionally required “. . . except when the public welfare shall require secrecy.”11 Exemptions from such constitutional insistence upon openness cannot be legislatively created or judicially upheld except when and where required by the public welfare. This applies to legislative deliberations as well as actions of the legislature, for both are integral parts of the legislative process.12
*706As the writer views the matter, the answer as to a possible constitutional infirmity as to the entire exemption of “partisan caucuses” from the requirement of openness depends upon the definition given to the word “caucus.” An accepted and widely used dictionary defines the word thusly: “[A] closed meeting of a group of persons belonging to the same political party or faction [usually] to select candidates or to decide on policy.”13 Even this broad definition would not seem to fit the situation of the two challenged meetings here before us. Here the parties have stipulated that the cochairman of the joint committee on finance “assigned subject areas of the budget” to individual members and “made them responsible for studying such areas,” with the secret sessions held for such individual members to report “their findings and recommendations.” Unless form is to replace substance, whatever the purpose stated or the label given such delegation, it appears clear that the action of the particular committee is the target, not any matter of party organization or general party policy. Seven or eleven members of one party on a committee could not be determining the party policy for their party colleagues in the senate or assembly. They would be discussing and deciding only what a particular committee would do. Committee action, not general party policy or organization, is involved.
*707The question of construction becomes one of the legislative intent in creating this exemption for “partisan caucuses of members of the legislature.” The intent of the legislature is a controlling factor in the interpretation of a statute.14 The writer would find the legislative intent and construe the statutory exemption to refer solely to the traditional and institutionalized party caucuses composed of all members of a political party in the assembly, in the state senate or, on occasion, in the two houses. The rules of senate and assembly refer to no other type of caucus. Even under the dictionary definition, it is only such caucuses of all party members in one branch of the legislature that can “select candidates or . . . decide on policy,” meaning the policy of the party members in senate or assembly as to a matter pending before the legislature. The basis for preferring and adopting such strict construction of the word “caucus” is that it alone furthers the general purpose of the open meeting statute and best stays within the constitutional limit. If three members of a five person legislative committee can, assuming they belong to the same party, meet in secret to determine what the committee is to do when it meets in public, the exemption as to a “partisan caucus” is broadened to where public business can be transacted in secrecy. This is contrary to the constitutional mandate and purpose of the statute. In determining legislative intent, consideration is to be given to the object sought to be established by the enactment. 15
The majority applies the rule of strict construction to the statute requiring open meetings. The writer would apply the rule of strict construction to the exemption. *708Strict construction ought here be applied against secrecy, not for it. Such strict construction of the word “caucus” is here suggested by the declaration of policy in the open meeting law that is an aid and guide to construction of the rest of the statute.16 It is indicated by the declaration of policy that our representative form of government is “dependent upon an informed electorate.”17 It is further indicated by the legislative declaration of the public policy as entitling the public “to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental affairs.”18 It is indicated by the constitutional mandate that doors of the legislature be kept open “except where the public welfare requires secrecy.”19 The writer would construe the reference to “partisan caucuses” in the open meeting law to apply only to caucuses of all party members in either the assembly or state senate or both.
The writer would conclude that both the meetings of members of the legislature’s joint committee on finances here challenged were not within the exemption of sec. 66.77 (4) (g), Stats., relating to “partisan caucuses,” and were illegal under the requirement of open meetings of sec. 66.77 (3), but only if it were established that the two conferences were “designed to avoid this section.” Whether the two meetings here challenged were thus “designed to avoid” the requirements of the open meeting law cannot easily be discerned or determined on this *709record. The record before us consists of affidavits which do not clearly establish a “design to avoid” the provisions of sec. 66.77. That issue as to design or intent here is largely a matter of drawing inferences from facts alleged or stipulated to. The record here appears to permit the drawing of different or conflicting inferences. This court, on this record at least without the taking of additional testimony as to material facts, ought not, and, as the writer sees it, cannot here determine the issue of design or intent. Therefore, I would dismiss this complaint without prejudice, leaving the parties to their options and remedies at the trial court level.

 Sec. 66.77, Stats.

 The majority states: “If members of a governmental body intentionally gather to discuss business without undertaking a formal meeting, they can be described as in a conference.”

 The majority continues: “The statute does not let such possible gatherings exist as an evasion of the law. ... If such intention [to avoid] is discerned, it may thereupon be designated a ‘meeting’ under the statute for analysis of its exact noncompliance with open session requirements.” See: Sec. 66.77 (1), Stats.

 The majority concedes: “It is certainly possible that the appearance of a quorum could be avoided by separate meetings of two or more groups, each less than quorum size, who agree through mutual representatives to act and vote uniformly, or by a decision by a group of less than quorum size which has the tacit agreement and acquiescence of other members sufficient to reach a quorum.”

See: Sec. 66.77 (2) (b), Stats., providing: “‘Meeting’ means the convening of a governmental body in a session such that the body is vested with authority, power, duties or responsibilities not vested in the individual members.”

See: Sec. 939.31, Stats.

 See: Sec. 66.77 (4) (g), Stats.

 Sec. 66.77 (3), Stats.

 Art. IV, see. 10, Wis. Const.

 Art. IV, sec. 8, Wis. Const.

 Art. IV, sec. 10, Wis. Const.

 See: 56 Am. Jur. 2d, Municipal Corporations, p. 215, sec. 161, stating: “. . . [U]nder a statute providing that actions of *706local legislative bodies be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly, it has been held that meetings of a county board of supervisors must be held openly, both for deliberation as well as action, since deliberation and action are recognized as dual components of the collective decision-making process and the meeting cannot be split off and confined to one component only so far as the right of the public to attend is concerned.”

 Webster’s, Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, based on Webster’s, Third New International Dictionary (1967), published by G. & G. Merriam Company.

 See: Safe Way Motor Coach Co. v. Two Rivers (1949), 256 Wis. 35, 39 N. W. 2d 847.

 Loof v. Rural Mut. Casualty Ins. Co. (1961), 14 Wis. 2d 512, 111 N. W. 2d 583.

 Sec. 66.77 (1), Stats., providing: “(1) In recognition of the fact that a representative government of the American type is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that the public is entitled to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental affairs and the transaction of governmental business. . .

 Id.

 Id.

 Art. IV, sec. 10, Wis. Const.