Despite Racking Up Three Consecutive Unanimous Votes, FOIA Reform Bill Killed Off By Rep. John Boehner

Failures

from the BEHOLD-THE-SYSTEM-IN-ACTION dept

FOIA reform is now truly dead. Earlier this week, it looked as though Sen. Jay Rockefeller might be the one holding the murder weapon. Despite passing unanimously through the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee, Rockefeller placed a hold on the bill, citing nebulous concerns by two regulatory agencies (FTC, SEC — neither of which were willing to go on the record about their problems with the bill) and something about “law enforcement agencies” being faced with “needless litigation” that would be a drain on their bottom lines. Of course, this ignores the fact that plenty of litigation involving law enforcement agencies is “needless” (because why be proactive about misconduct and abuse when you can just settle later?) and that any agency fighting the War on Drugs/Terror has generally been able to secure funding and equipment with a minimum of hassle.

Rockefeller’s hold provoked a deluge pro-FOIA reform phone calls and emails, leading to Rockefeller releasing his hold and the bill moving on with unanimous Senate consent. This booted it back to the House where it ran headlong into Speaker of the House John Boehner, who immediately tabled it.

Newsweek’s coverage of Boehner’s “opaque” move concludes with this paragraph:

But these improvements may never see the light of day, as Boehner has tabled the bill. In a press conference on Thursday morning, a journalist asked Boehner about the fate of the FOIA reform bill to which he replied, “I have no knowledge of what the plan is for that bill.” If the bill does not make the House’s calendar by the end of the day, the bill dies.

The guy who made the plan for the bill (1. Do nothing) claimed he had no idea what the plan was. If the plan was to kill the reform bill, mission accomplished. Death by Rockefeller was narrowly averted only to result in Death by Boehner — despite the fact that the FOIA reform sailed through the House earlier with a 410-0 vote.

The Hill performed a brief autopsy.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday night officially declared reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) dead this year as the House gaveled out of session.

And he blamed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for its death.

“And Boehner kills #FOIA improvements,” Leahy tweeted at a reporter a little before midnight after the House finished its work on the “cromnibus” government funding bill — the last item of its agenda for the year.

The wonders of our political system continue. Something that received unanimous support — not only on both sides of legislative branch, but on both sides of the partisan divide — was dismantled by one man. One man who stood in front of a House that had passed the bill 410-0 and said, “Whatever.”

Chances are it was one man swayed by the same regulatory agencies and the industries regulated by them. Transparency advocates suggest Wall Street made a last-minute push to thwart the legislation.

The suspicion among transparency groups is that the financial industry is working to fortify federal open-records exemptions for Wall Street which also exist in states and cities across the country. Those groups also fear the financial industry is aiming to prevent government regulators from erring on the side of transparency when faced with open-records requests for information about the financial industry.

“The negotiation process for this bill has been going on for six months now,” said Amy Bennett, the assistant director of OpenTheGovernment.org and the point person for a coalition of transparency groups working to pass the bill. “But the banks only started raising objections in the last week. Wall Street’s lobbyists are going to their allies on Capitol Hill and are asking them to delay it. But Wall Street just wants to kill the bill.”

Both Sen. Tim Johnson (who argued against the bill before its last-minute Senate passage) and John Boehner have received large amounts of funding from industries tied to Wall Street, according to information gathered by OpenSecrets.org. Boehner stopped the bill in its tracks by keeping it out of Congress’ hands during the final moments of the lame duck session. Boehner’s implicit message is that the good of the special interests outweighs the good of the many. Thanks to this, government agencies are still free to abuse FOIA exemptions and force the truly tenacious to take their chances in the federal court system if they hope to get their hands on documents the government would rather keep buried.

Filed Under: foia, foia reform, john boehner, patrick leahy