Assembly Speaker Considers Changing State’s John Doe Law After Current Investigation Closes

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos opened the door to changing Wisconsin’s John Doe law, following reports last week that a secret investigation of several conservative groups hit a major snag.

According to reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wall Street Journal, the judge in the ongoing John Doe case quashed subpoenas of several conservative groups and Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, ruling that they raised First Amendment concerns.

John Doe investigations are largely secret proceedings overseen by judges that give prosecutors the power to compel witnesses to testify and turn over documents. Vos said Republicans would wait until this investigation was closed before proposing any changes to Wisconsin’s John Doe law, but the speaker opened the door to changing that system.

“It’s still so fresh, we have to sit down with our legal counsel and talk about the options. It’s my understanding that other states do things differently,” Vos said. “They utilize a grand jury system where instead of having a single judge make the decisions in secret, at least they have to go in front of citizens and convince citizens to do it.”

Democrats like state Rep. Gordon Hintz of Oshkosh questioned why Republicans were even talking about changes to the John Doe right now.

“It really seems to me premature and reactive to say our system isn’t working because there’s been this John Doe (case), which we don’t know all the details about involving a sitting Republican governor,” he said.

This is the second John Doe investigation involving the governor’s campaign since he took office. The first led to guilty pleas by former aides to Walker who worked for him when he was Milwaukee County executive.