NEW FOIA Reforms: A Chance to Shine Some Light on Scientology's IRS Tax Exemption

Yes, vaguely. They changed stuff last minute in regards to his gripe about either "law enforcement" issues or "court cases" depending on which media reports you read.

Either way, based on breaking coverage throughout the day that likely means they added wording to spell out some boneheaded nit that was essentially a non-issue rather than remove anything.

Note in the video above, 1:47 - 2:05 Leahy states it got a 3rd amendment. But this happened so late in the day that the 3rd revision of the now passed bill didn't go up on the Senate website yet. Will likely be there tomorrow.

More details in these excellent articles...

Freedom of Information Act Reform Prevails over Last-Minute Holds
by Sean Moulton, 12/8/2014
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/freedom-information-act-reform-prevails-over-last-minute-holds

Senate passes FOIA bill
By Burgess Everett 12/8/14
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/senate-passes-foia-bill-113403.html

^^That last one includes some stoopid remarks from Rockefeller that makes no sense. Senile old goat needs to GTFO and go retire now.

NEST STOP: The House. A bill has to be on the books for 3 days there before they can vote on it. That is just barely enough time to get another late day vote on Thursday, the last day before all the congress critters go home for the holidays and the session ends.

oh wow

Quirk Objection: 'Objection! Assumes mind not found in evidence!'

Raw text of revised bill now online, even though the "actions" on this bill say it's still missing:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2520/text

I think what is really missing is a breakdown of the last minute amendments made and/or pretty html version of the final bill. To determine what was done to appease Rockefeller in the 11th hour, I'm waiting on the pretty html version to do a comparison to the previous version I had captured for analyzing & highlighting how the new changes were relevant to my scilon dox hunting interests.

Meanwhile, here is Senator Leahy's section-by-section breakdown of exactly what improvements have been made to the FOIA in the finalized bill:

http://www.leahy.senate.gov/download/updated-foia-section-by-section-final

Under "Sec. 2 Amendments" in the above document, all the stuff listed from the "Presumption of Openness" bullet to the end of bulleted list, are relevant to our interests related to getting dox on scilon tax exemption investigation file(s). Also, "Sec. 4 Amendments" bullet applies to getting a look at some of the stuff in these "ROI" file(s).

Meanwhile, the "Sec. 3 Amendments" bullet may or may not help open up a crack in the Internal Revenue Tax Code Section 6103 disclosure limitations. (What fk'd us over on the last FOIA request) If that amendment to the act does have a trickle-down change effect to relevant tax code, then some of those "Sec. 2 Amendments" stuff noted above will also apply for going after the official copy of the finalized Scientology IRS agreement (to see what if anything was different from the draft leaked in the 1990s).

Disclaimer - the above amendment notes are subject to change *IF* the House of Representatives doesn't approve the Senate bill exactly as-is, and instead opts to tweak or revises the current text in any way. (Which I believe will also prevent it from going to the President for sign-off before year end and cause it to bounce back to the Senate for another go round)

NEXT STEPS ON HARPOONING EFFORT - Targeting your personal House of Rep congress critters + house leadership to pass the bill on Thursday with no objections.

More on this front coming later today. I'm waiting to see what number the bill is referenced as in the next stage, and whether or not the opengov activists set up another automated webpage for emailing our Representatives by state before I put together steps for manual e-mailing.

No, the old link targets congress critters in the Senate. We will need to target congress critters in the House of Representatives. (that's two separate branches of congress/parliament here in the US)

Are we there yet?

Not quite. ATM I do have manual harpooning instructions drafted because none of the opengov groups have slapped up a handy webpage to do it for us.

But I am waiting for online confirmation that S.2520 made it onto the official "List of Bills To Be Considered on House Floor" weekly calendar/agenda before I post need2know harpoons-needed-here info.

See: http://docs.house.gov/floor/

Since the Senate bill got passed in post 5pm rush yesterday, the above link has been updated twice - 9pm last night, and again a few minutes ago at 12:39pm. Neither update recorded a NEW entry for S.2520.

Also missing from online congressional record is the all important "Senate Committee Report 113-287" that makes the approval in Senate and hand off to the House official. They slapped up a empty placeholder for it last night on the following link, then added a note this morning saying "As of 12/09/2014 the text of this report has not been received."

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/113th-congress/senate-report/287

Hopefully, this is just leftover "I's need dotted, T's need crossed" hassle that will work themselves out by end-o-day today or tomorrow morning. But until S.2520 is officially on the weekly calendar/agenda list, harpooning Representatives could possibly be a premature misfire. IOW - better safe than sorry and I want to make damn sure they are scheduled to vote on it before we hammer them for a YES vote.

Half-assed confirmation that the "I's need dotted, T's need crossed" due to late day Senate vote is in the works just showed up here, from the Office of the Clerk:

http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.aspx

Status Link from the end of Clerk entry above, leads here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:S.2520:

That link indicates that the House has received all information "except the text" -- so the Reps don't have the finalized FOIA Improvement bill available for review just yet. It appears that they're just passing along a placeholder for it ATM.

Rep. Issa (he who sponsored the previous House bill) and Rep. Cummings picks up the torch for round 2!!

Issa, Cummings Call for House Passage of FOIA Improvement Act

http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/

Final legislative-lurker status update for Tuesday...

They now have the "text of legislation" for the last minute Rockefeller amendment to S.2520 plugged into the House's online congressional record: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:S.2520:

But the Senate Committee Report is still missing in the House system, as well as here: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/113th-congress/senate-report/287

And even though the calendar for "Bills to be considered this week on the House Floor" was updated as of 4:17 5:47 PM today (an hour after they concluded the day's business according to the Office of Clerk agenda page). S.2520 still has NOT been officially added to the calendar.

But... the main legislation text IS in their record, so Representatives can now review it and the press release from Issa and Cummings makes up for the missing Senate Committee Report explaining the bill.

Therefore, it seems kosher to assume it will definitely hit the House Floor calendar tomorrow and we can safely proceed with harpooning the final round of congress critters. So I will be posting idgit-proof instructions along with a copypasta letter for peeps to email their assigned Representativ and urge them to VOTE YES on the FOIA Improvement Act in the next hour or two.

Manually Harpooning The House of Representatives Step 1 of 3

Go fetch your congress critter's name and web page from this link:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Plug in your zip code and click the red button.

When the map page is displayed, click on the name of your Rep's name. If Rep. Issa or Rep. Cummings name is returned, ABORT! They already pledged their support, so there is no need to harpoon them.

Once you land on your Rep's home page on house.gov, YMMV slightly. For me, there is a "Contact Lou" (Alt. "Contact Me") nav menu link at the top of the home page. From there I can select a dropdown option for "Email Me" and I get an online send-email form to fill out.

My Rep's online email form makes me plug in all my personal contact info and select a "category" for my issue before I can supply a subject and message for my harpoon. The proper category is "Government Reform" (that's the House Committee who passed related FOIA bill earlier this year).

OPTIONAL BONUS POINT: Double check and see if your Rep's name is listed on the key committee of interest here: http://oversight.house.gov/subcommittee/full-committee/

(continued...)

Manually Harpooning The House of Representatives Step 2 of 3

Make the email subject: Your Vote on S.2520 FOIA Improvement Act

Then use the following copypasta template as text for the message of your email. See notes in Step 3 for tweaking this copypasta template before sending.

I am writing to urge you to take a stand against government secrecy and VOTE YES on the bipartisan FOIA Improvement Act (S. 2520) when it is considered on the House floor at the end of this week.

A similar set of FOIA reforms was previously sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa and unanimously passed in the House under H.R.1211 on February 25, 2014. The Senate Judiciary Committee's version of H.R.1211 was introduced as S.2520 in June<<INSERT OPTIONAL NAME DROP HERE>>. This bill was unanimously passed in a last minute rush on Monday, December 8th. Therefore, it is now imperative that the House also act quickly before the 113th session is over.

The FOIA Improvement Act, supported by more than 70 advocacy groups across the political spectrum, would add a presumption of openness to the Freedom of Information Act, strengthen the Office of Government Information Services, establish a Chief FOIA Officers Council, and require a FOIA website to make requesting records easier for everyone.

Please take a stand against government secrecy and support these improvements to the public’s right to know by not objecting to S.2520! You can review the legislation text in the Library of Congress system here:

http://1.usa.gov/1uhzLAU

Thank you for listening to a constituent. I hope to see your positive support on this measure in the near future.

Sincerely,

<<YOUR NAME HERE>>

(continued...)

Manually Harpooning The House of Representatives Step 3 of 3

Customize and tweak the copypasta template letter in Step 2 for the following notes and any other changes you wish to make, then click send.

(A) Replace <<YOUR NAME HERE>> with your actual name.

(B) MINOR TWEAK NEEDED FOR OPTIONAL NAME DROP: Check the following list of sponsors/co-sponsors on Senate Bill 2520 for YOUR STATE. If one of these righteous Senators is from your state, you have a wee bit of extra leverage. Possibly more than a wee bit if the Dem/GOP party alignment also corresponds with the Representative you are harpooning.

If one of your state Senators are NOT listed below, remove the <<INSERT OPTIONAL NAME DROP HERE>> notation in copypasta template text.

S.2520 Sponsors
Sen. Leahy [D-VT]
Sen. Cornyn [R-TX]

S.2520 Co-sponsors
Sen. Markey [D-MA]
Sen. Hirono [D-HI]
Sen. Grassley [R-IA]
Sen. Johanns [R-NE]
Sen. Ayotte [R-NH]
Sen. Coons [D-DE]

If your state appears in the above list, replace <<INSERT OPTIONAL NAME DROP HERE>> in the copypasta template so that the sentence reads something like this (choose "sponsored" vs. "co-sponsored" accordingly and fill in the proper LAST NAME):

The Senate Judiciary Committee's version of H.R. 1211 was introduced as S.2520 in June and [co-]sponsored by Senator <<LAST NAME>>.

(c) OPTIONAL BONUS POINT TWEAK FROM STEP 1: If your Rep's name is listed as being a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, you can change the copypasta template text from "sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa" to say "approved by your committee" instead.

Proofread your tweaks and send that puppy on its way!
/done

Step 1 - check! 2. Nice letter AL! 3. whew... DONE!

Question - who/what/where do we harpoon if the bill doesn't show up on the calendar tomorrow?

Good question. The calendar was last updated today at 12:21 AM and still no entry for SB 2520.

People to target with the question of will it be added today would be (in priority order) House GOP Leadership, House Dem Leadership, Reps Issa & Cummings, or any other reps on the Committee on Oversight & Gov Reform.

Republican Leadership
Speaker of the House - Rep. John Boehner
Majority Leader - Rep. Kevin McCarthy
Majority Whip - Rep. Steve Scalise

Democratic Leadership
Democratic Leader - Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Whip - Rep. Steny Hoyer

Unfortunately, unlike Senators the websites for Reps all seem to have a disclaimer that they only respond to constituents. As such, the email forms that require address info will probably filter you out if you're not a voter they care about. So phone calls and tweets would likely be our best approach.

If the calendar doesn't include S.2520 by mid morning, I'll post an update for the list of names above with URL/phone/twitter contact information.

Here's a copypasta list of Tweets for anyone on Twitter that wants to pester the congress critters who matter most awhile.

.@SpeakerBoehner will #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

.@GOPLeader will #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

.@SteveScalise will #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

.@NancyPelosi will #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

.@WhipHoyer will #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

.@DarrellIssa, @RepCummings will the #FOIA Improvement Act S.2520 be added to the @HouseFloor calendar today?
http://docs.house.gov/floor/

House calendar of bills to be considered last updated at 10:42 AM, still no entry showing S.2520 has been added for the week: http://docs.house.gov/floor/

So here's more contact info on House leadership critters:

Republican Majority Leader - Rep. Kevin McCarthy - @GOPLeader
CA-23 District (Bakersfield & Lancasater)
Phone: (202) 225-2915
https://kevinmccarthy.house.gov/contact/email-me
http://www.majorityleader.gov/
http://www.facebook.com/CongressmanKevinMcCarthy

Republican Majority Whip - Rep. Steve Scalise - @SteveScalise
LA-1 District (Hammond & St Tammany Parish)
Phone: (202) 225-3015
https://scaliseforms.house.gov/contact/
http://www.majoritywhip.gov/
https://www.facebook.com/RepSteveScalise

Speaker of the House - Rep. John Boehner - @SpeakerBoehner
OH-8 District (Butler, Clark & Miami Counties)
(202) 225-6205
http://johnboehner.house.gov/contact/
http://www.speaker.gov/
https://www.facebook.com/SpeakerJohnBoehner

Democratic Leader - Rep. Nancy Pelosi - @NancyPelosi
CA-12 District (San Francisco)
(202) 225-4965
http://pelosi.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
http://www.democraticleader.gov/
http://www.facebook.com/NancyPelosi

Democratic Whip - Rep. Steny Hoyer - @WhipHoyer
MD-5 District (Greenbelt & Waldorf)
(202) 225-4131
https://hoyer.house.gov/email-steny
http://www.democraticwhip.gov/
http://www.facebook.com/WhipHoyer

I made a round of phone calls between 9-10am and left messages asking all of them "Please support open government and take the necessary steps to bring S.2520 to a floor for a vote before the 113th session ends tomorrow."

For more good tweets, RT from these folks:
https://twitter.com/_rshapiro
https://twitter.com/AmyLikesOpenGov

A good cheat sheet for talking points if anyone is inspired to make phone calls was just put up by OpenTheGovernment:

Now or (Almost) Never for FOIA Reform
http://www.openthegovernment.org/Now_or_Never_FOIA

And this is why we should be harpooning this as hard as we can:

bump!

I was hoping I would have good news to share on this front by this point in the day. But there has been no change to the House Floor calendar since this morning.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, who sponsored the bill, put out a press release this afternoon trying to add fuel to the fire:

With Adjournment Now Only Hours Away, Leahy Calls On House To Pass FOIA Improvement Act
http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/w...y-calls-on-house-to-pass-foia-improvement-act

While this excellent OpEd came out late last night: http://www.dailypress.com/news/opin...reform-editorial-20141210-20141209-story.html

The director from one of the big advocacy groups that promoted the bill, National Security Archive, is slated to be on Stephen Colbert's show tonight regarding the Torture Report. But according to social media, he will also attempt to mention the congressional clusterfuck happening in the hopes of getting the "Colbert Bump" for the cause. They also published this today: https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/201...ill-to-calendar-pass-by-thursday-december-11/

And finally, a few of the most vocal transparency advocates were tweeting all day long that they were hearing from their contacts that bankers were lobbying to keep it from hitting the floor. More on that here: http://www.freedominfo.org/2014/12/banking-lobbyists-opposing-foia-legislation-sources-say/

So keep the emails and phone calls going. Every little bit helps.

No change in status. The House didn't adjourn until 9pm last night (after 2hrs of farewell speeches to outgoing congressmen). Throughout the afternoon and early evening they appeared to doubled down to clear and push what seemed like a large amount of crap on the current list of bills to be considered for the week:

http://docs.house.gov/floor/

But that list never got an end-o-day update to reflect those changes, so the FOIA Improvement Act is still NOT on it. And today is the final day of the session. So unless it shows up on the list at the very start of the day on the house floor, I don't have a lot of hope we're gonna see a vote on it today (/speculate)

On the media front - not sure if the Colbert Bump happened. But there was this:

House should approve FOIA reform bill before leaving town for Christmas
By Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner 12/10/2014
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2557221#

Note for anyone sending email harpoons - you should tweak the ending in the step 2 copypasta template text I provided upstream ITT to loose the "later this week" bit.

I haz bad news.



This morning I woke up and commenced harpooning this effort for one last day before Congress adjurns for the year.

And I discovered the online congressional record had been updated to reflect a status change on Senate bill 2520: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2520/all-info#all-actions

It was "held at the desk"

So I said "WTF is this shit...." /raaaaage

And commenced to sound the alarm to key peeps in the opengov / transparency advocacy camp:
https://twitter.com/DatumOmNom/status/543041792795758592

Confusion ensued. DMs flew. Nobody was quite sure what had happened. So I picked up the damn phone and commenced to feverishly call every mofo congressman that mattered to find out WTF. Nobody would give me a straight answer who/what/where/when/how this desk hold thing worked.

So then I finally called the right branch of gubmint and got a straight fking answer from the paper pushing clerks themselves: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sj4a3r?new_post=true

Apparently, "Held at the desk" is not the same as your usual hold on a bill. So I no sooner got that straightened out and was passing info along to peeps in the transparency groups that supported this bill, and Speaker Boehner held a live stream press conference on other matters....

Video will eventually be available for replay here: (currently processing)


And supposedly one of the opengov transparency group advocates piped up in that press conference and asked Boehner a generic question about 'FOIA reform' (added as an update here: http://e-pluribusunum.com/2014/12/1...-hangs-in-the-u-s-house-hangs-in-the-balance/ )

And Speaker Boehner replied “I have no knowledge of what the plan is for that bill.”

Which is a lie, he was the one who had it "held at the desk" and only the Speaker can do that.

So then the opengov advocates made this happen:

In Opaque Move, Boehner Tables Government Transparency Bill
http://www.newsweek.com/opaque-move-boehner-tables-government-transparency-bill-291153

And this...

Editorial: Call Boehner now to support open records
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opi...ll-boehner-now-support-open-records/20247955/

But I had already called Boehner's office twice today and once yesterday. And Congress shuts down for the year in 1 hour at the time of this post. So fk it... I'm done making phone calls. But others are welcome to try.

The media is likely to hype this as "Boehner killed it" but kill is a strong word and it is not exactly dead in the House and sent back to the Senate for revisions. Delay is a better word. Boehner delayed it in such a way he ensured it wouldn't hit the House floor and get voted on than passed to the president to sign before the end of the year.

...to be continued in 2015...

Thank you for all of your time & energy on this.

I've got the patience to sit through another "delay..."

And now the NYTimes weighs in and prints Boehner's quote. Where were they earlier in the week when nobody noticed the damn thing was "held at the desk" and there was still time to apply pressure

The Clock’s Ticking on Freedom of Information Reform
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/the-ticking-clock-on-freedom-of-information-reform/?src=twr&module=Search&mabReward=relbias:s,&_r=0

I hope we have better luck in the next Congress. FOIA is a non-partisan issue that benefits all Americans.

The House has decided to not go home for the year just yet. They reconvene tomorrow at 3pm. Will Boehner bring the FOIA to the floor for a vote? Extremely doubtful. But hey he might surprise us. So phone calls to Boehner's office urging him to release the "held at the desk" status on FOIA Senate bill 2520 tomorrow wouldn't be entirely off base.

A quick update on this: the House reconvened for barely 15mins on Friday to clean up some leftover business and speaker Boehner was not attendance. The senate bill was, of course, not brought for consideration. There was a small flurry of OpEd and other summary coverage in the media with after-the-fact lament. I will post links to the better ones for some click-love before the weekend is over. The best, and most high profile, was from Columbia Review of Journalism.

As I predicted, the media ran with "Boehner killed FOIA" for the most part. And Rep Issa put out a lame, false flag press release, claiming the Senate could still pass the far weaker House bill for their earlier FOIA Oversight Act that the Judiciary Committee rewrote into the far better/stronger FOIA Improvement Act. I'm loathe to link to this disgraceful act of blame-shifting. But it's out there and fortunately got very little attention.

Moving forward, the Senate bill can still be brought to the House Floor in the next session. So before January rolls around, I will revise the letter to House Reps I posted upstream in this thread so that urges them to help bring it up for a vote in addition to asking them to vote yes. (Unless an automated alternative is made available via the same open government advocacy group that setup the link for sending letters to Senators I posted in my OP on this thread)

In the meanwhile, anyone who has a Rep on the House Committee for Oversight & Government Reform could take the initiative to write a letter asking their Rep to read the bill and become well versed in the background of this legislation so that they could possibly lead the debate on bringing it up for consideration when the 114th session commences next year.

Note: the list of members assigned to that committee for the next session will be adjusted in the near future. Old timers aren't likely to move. Retirees or ousted congress critters will likely be replaced with noobs. I'll be tracking this for further updates as each party announces their adjusted assignments.

Here's the best of the media coverage on the FOIA S.2520 bill not coming up on the floor of the House for a vote before the session ended. Please show these links some click love in order to hopefully encourage the outlets to do follow-up coverage on this important piece of legislation next year.

House scuttles bipartisan FOIA reforms
By Steve Benen, MSNBC 12/12/2014
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-scuttles-bipartisan-foia-reforms

FOIA reform dies while the press looked the other way
By Kelly J O'Brien, Columbia Journalism Review, 12/12/2014
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/foia_reform_dies_while_the_pre.php

Bipartisan effort to expand access to public records fails
By Ed Pilkington, The Guardian 12/12/2014
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...fort-to-expand-access-to-public-records-fails

Push to Reform the Freedom of Information Act Collapses in House
By Robert Collins, PBS Frontline 12/14/2014
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...reedom-of-information-act-collapses-in-house/

Welcome, Gov. Haslam, plus FOIA lament
By David Plazasm The Tennessean 12/13/2014
http://www.tennessean.com/story/opi...ise-senate-foia-bill-now-house-vote/20263157/

Congress Tables Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Reforms Despite Bipartisan Support
Laura Lee Baris, People's Pundit Daily 12/13/2014
http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/2...ation-act-reforms-despite-bipartisan-support/

Editorial: House botches chance for much-needed FOIA reform
Longview News-Journal, 12/14/2014
http://www.news-journal.com/opinion...cle_ee7f3a8a-d2fa-5ae1-aa3e-0c0cd873c082.html

There was also an AP article that ran on several brand name outlets (Politico, Wapo, Fox News, Huffpo, etc) with disappointment quotes from a few of the key advocacy group people. But they also gave lip service to Rep. Issa's disgraceful blame-shifting press release - so fk 'em, I'm not linking to it here.

Also worth noting, some media outlets have taken Sen. Rockefeller's cryptic remarks to Politico after his 11th hour Senate hold was released at face value, and reported that there was some last minute changes or minor wording tweak done to the bill at the last minute. False bullshit is false.

The govtrack.us website now has all three copies of Senate bill 2520 online with a tool for doing a side-by-side comparison between versions. This makes it clear that the only changes between the second version from November and the final version passed to the House is the work-in-progress committee notes that serve as a temporary preamble to the actual legislation text. This preamble ONLY notes what changed in the amendments made between the first and second versions.

So when you take those work-in-progress notes away and the actual legislation legalsleeze that will go on the books if enacted DID NOT CHANGE in the final "engrossed" version of the bill. They just stripped out the preamble explaining the amendment history of revisions made before the Senate passed it. So Rockefeller raised a non-issue that only required talking him down and no wording adjustments to the proposed legislation whatsoever.

Good riddance, Darrell Issa: A wasteful blowhard’s humiliating history
By Ari Rabin-Havt, 12/11/2014
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/11/good_riddance_darrell_issa_a_wasteful_blowhards_humiliating_history/

Note for future reference - Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz would be an important player to target with the next round of harpoons for eliciting his support on calling S.2520 up for a vote. He looks to be quite young for a Congressman, let alone one to be put in charge of important committee with only 6 years on the hill.

Bump!

We have two, new initiatives brewing on the hill for FOIA reform. This time, parallel bills that are supposedly identical to last year's Senate bill have been drafted and simultaneously launched for both branches of congress.

Lawmakers try again on FOIA reform
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/02/lawmakers-try-again-on-foia-reform-202005.html

What Senator Leahy, he who sponsored the last bill, had to say about the new Senate bill:
http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/cornyn-and-leahy-introduce-foia-legislation

Unfortunately, Reps Issa and Cummings have not put forth a similar statement for the House version of this bill. And I haven't had a chance yet to read both bills and compare it to what was up for vote last year. So I can neighter confirm or deny that they are "nearly identical" as Sen. Leahy has claimed. But FWIW, here they are:

Senate bill: http://www.leahy.senate.gov/download/alb15124
House bill: http://images.politico.com/global/2015/02/02/house_foia_oversight_and_implementation_act_of_2015.pdf

Current status here is the process has essentially started over, from scratch. Both bills need to be assigned to the appropriate panel for review. revision and/or voting, and then brought to floor for a full vote. The Senate has moved on the first step and Leahy's bill is on the agenda for tomorrow. Once we get passed the panel debate and refinement stage, then the time will come for another round of harpooning your senators and reps to support the new reform effort.

Some more info on the new initiatives.

FOIA Reform Bills Revived in Both Chambers of Congress
http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2015/02/foia-reform-bills-revived-both-chambers-congress/104550/

Analysis of and Prospects for New House and Senate FOIA Bills
https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/201...nd-prospects-for-house-and-senate-foia-bills/

S. 337: FOIA Improvement Act of 2015
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s337
Introduced and referred to Committee on Feb 2, 2015
Scheduled for the following committee meetings: Feb 5, 2015 10:30 a.m. — Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Current committee members: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members (new nominations might not be finalized yet)

H.R. 653: To amend ...Freedom of Information Act
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr653
Introduced and referred to Committee on Feb 2, 2015
Committee assignment: House Oversight and Government Reform
Current committee members: http://oversight.house.gov/subcommittee/full-committee/ (new nominations might not be finalized yet)

At this stage of things, the House committee is probably the biggest area of concern due to this being their first vetting of most (but not all) of the significant changes introduced by last year's Senate bill. There is also some big changes in the people assigned to this committee that includes a brand new chairman and at least 10 newly or recently elected noobs. So the ideal target for early harpooning would be for peeps who have an elected official on the above link for current Oversight committee members, with the major points to make being covered the second link in this post.

Meanwhile, in today's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting...

BUMP FOR PROGRESS on the FOIA Reform Bill front - the first House Committee hearing of their version of the 2015 proposed legislation happens on Friday, Feb. 27th:

http://oversight.house.gov/hearing/ensuring-government-transparency-foia-reform/

Anybody who has a congress critter listed on the full committee page I've bolded in the quote on this post - please consider sending them an email urging them to support this bill and help bring it to the House Floor for a full vote.

More news: 2 new co-sponsors jumped on the House FOIA bill once it was added to the committee meeting schedule - Rep. Eleanor Norton [D-DC0] and Rep. Gerald Connolly [D-VA11].

These are in addition to the bill's original sponsor Rep, Darrell Issa [R-CA49] and his initial co-sponsors Rep. Elijah Cummings [D-MD7] and Rep. Mike Quigley [D-IL5]

Needs MOAR GOP supporters.

For Twitter users, the committee chairman and other GOP committee members can be targeted at @jasoninthehouse and @GOPoversight

House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Friday February 26, 2015 hearing on Ensuring Government Transparency Through FOIA Reform is scheduled to begin at 9am and will be broadcast live over the internet. If I have this figured out rightly, that streaming broadcast will show up online here:

http://oversight.house.gov/hearing/ensuring-government-transparency-foia-reform/

Live stream is live and will be archived on the above link. But to follow along in real time, it works better to tune in here and click the "skip to live" button at the bottom of the player: