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Mon Dec 15, 2014, 12:27 PM Dec 2014

FOIA reform dies while the press looked the other way – Columbia Journalism Review



FOIA reform dies while the press looked the other way – Columbia Journalism Review
By florida 15 December, 2014 No Comments

More than two years of work by open government advocates collapsed on Thursday night when House Speaker John Boehner closed the final legislative session of the 113th Congress without bringing the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014 to a vote.

Similar legislation passed the House with a vote of 410-0 earlier this year, and the Improvement Act was given unanimous consent in the Senate on Monday, so it is safe to say that if the bill had come to the floor it would now be on its way to the President’s desk.

Amy Bennett is the assistant director of OpenTheGovernment.org, which since 2011 has helped build a coalition of pro-transparency groups and lawmakers dedicated to improving FOIA. She expressed frustration at Boehner’s refusal to acknowledge the momentum behind the bill. “It feels a little 11th hour,” she said.

But even more frustrating to advocates fighting to push the bill through its final stages was an almost complete lack of interest from the major publications most likely to benefit from better freedom of information laws. When US Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) almost killed the bill singlehandedly in the face of otherwise unanimous support earlier this week, it didn’t garner more than an eyebrow raise from the media.
http://floridafaf.org/foia-reform-dies-press-looked-way-columbia-journalism-review/
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