CCAP Bill Amended to Allow Landlords Full Access; Possibly Going to Assembly for Vote

As many of you know who have been following my updates on the ever evolving attempts by Marlin Schneider to restrict access to CCAP - Mr. Schneider has again amended his proposed bill. The bill is now called Assembly Bill 663 but it is practically the same as the amended AB 340. Why the change in the bill number I have not a clue.

AB 663 was voted on by the State Affairs and Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, February 3, 2010.

Prior to voting on the bill, several amendments were made. The major amendment was to was to include real estate brokers and salespeople, bankers and other financial agents, landlords, and those working in the title industry, to the list of the "select few" who would be able to access CCAP in its entirety. Everyone else would still be limited to the restricted version of CCAP which would exclude information on pending cases and cases in which the defendant was acquitted or the lawsuit was dismissed.

Even with this major changes, AB 663 barely made it out of committee. The committee was deadlocked at 3 to 3. Voting for the bill was Rep Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee), Rep. Leon Black (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison). Voting against the proposed bill was Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison), Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomnowac) and Rep. Danield Knodl (R-Germantown). Two members of the committee were on vacation and therefore did not participate in the vote. The Chairperson of the committe, and bill c0-sponsor, Fred Kessler advanced the bill, without reccomendation, to the Assembly leaders who will now determine whether or not the Assembly as a whole will vote on it.

While it is great that landlords have now been added to the"chosen few" who are deemed worthy to have access to all open records in Wisconsin - this bill should still fail. Current President of the Wisconsin Apartment Association, John H. Fischer (also known as Dr. Rent, gave his personal opinion on the AASEWAdvisors list serv, earlier.

He stated, in part:

It is nice that the bill on CCAP was amended to include people like landlords and employers… but to be completely honest, now it has just gotten silly. He [Rep. MArlin Schneider] wanted this bill so landlords and employers didn’t use the CCAP records in a method that was illegal, but then he modifies the bill to include us…. So what exactly will it accomplish now? It has been watered down so far to have no real impact, so why even have it at all. In addition, how are they going to determine who is a landlord, who is an employer? Are we going to have to register? (Gee a statewide registration system for landlords, won't that make licensing something easy to do in the future).

In my personal opinion, the stance of the WAA should be similar to that of the Newspapers. Even though they were allowed full access under the original proposal, they still objected to it because there is something inherently wrong with making public records difficult for the public to have access to.

. . .

I think we still need to be opposed because once limitations are put in place, what is stopping from them from expanding those limitations in a future session. They can take away all of our rights at one time, or they can chip away piece by piece until they are all gone. Either way, the end game is the same.

My two cents….

I agree with John 100%.

This bill is barely holding on. It is on life support -- we need to put it out of its misery. Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel in his recent article on the topic indicates that Kessler himself, one of the bill's sponsors, said that it has a "slim" chance of passing. I would like to change that to NO chance of passing.

This is a very critical time. We must all contact our representatives in the state legislature and let them know that this bill should be defeated.

If you do not know the contact information for your representatives you can find that information here.

Oh yeah, and here is an article stating that Rep. Schneider is lying in an attempt to push his legislation limiting CCAP through the system. Good thing the AP caught him.