Political Quotes

“this evening, the Senate is considering S. 627, as amended by the House of Representatives--the bill now called the Budget Control Act of 2011. Earlier this week, the House Republican Leadership used a procedural maneuver to strip from this bill bipartisan provisions to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, that unanimously passed the Senate. I urge the Senate to restore the bipartisan Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act of 2011, as originally and unanimously passed by the Senate in May, when the Senate considers its budget bill. The Faster FOIA Act enjoys broad bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. The Senate unanimously passed this bill in May, after the Judiciary Committee favorably reported the bill by voice vote. Recently, more than 35 transparency organizations urged the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to act on this legislation. On Tuesday, the Washington Post editorialized that the House should promptly enact this bipartisan bill to improve the FOIA process. Senator Cornyn and I first introduced the Faster FOIA Act in 2005, to address the growing problem of excessive FOIA delays within our Federal agencies. During the intervening years, the problem of excessive FOIA delays has not gone away. We reintroduced this bill in 2010, and the Senate unanimously passed it last year. The current bill is the most recent product of our bipartisan work to help reinvigorate FOIA.…”