White House silent & inactive on OGP & 5th national open government plan
Alexander Howard
Good afternoon! Sorry for cross-posting.
Back in November 2021, the White House and GSA hosted the first public meeting on open government of the Biden Harris administration.
White House and GSA officials said then that open government was a priority of the administration.
The officials on the call committed to re-engaging with US civil society to co-create a 5th National Action Plan for Open Government for the Open Government Partnership, which President Obama & VP Biden co-founded with 7 other nations back in 2011:
https://mobile.twitter.com/digiphile/status/1465774372199837700.
In December 2021, President Biden told a global conference that every nation should “stand with those in civil society and courageous citizens around the world who are demanding transparency of their governments. And let us all work together to hold governments accountable for the people they serve.”
Separately, GSA Administrator Carnahan said the USA would engage a broader set of stakeholders in co-creating a fifth national action plan. The State Department confirmed this week that the 5th national action plan will be led by GSA with support from the White House.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case in the more than two months since then. It’s mid-February and the Administration has not engaged publicly or privately with the US civil society groups that work on open government as it did for the first 3 actions plans. The Open Government Partnership Secretariat should take note of words without action, put the USA under review, & suspend participation if there isn’t a sea change in activity led by the President this next month.
It’s now been over a year since a coalition letter asked open questions on open government:
https://governing.digital/2021/02/09/open-questions-on-open-government-in-the-usa/
There is still no public response to it, nor to the letter the coalition sent to the White House in March calling for presidential action on open government:
https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/biden-promised-transparency-has-he-delivered
There is still no public response to the letters the coalition has sent the Justice Department regarding a FOIA memo, which the White House did not comment on, only an acknowledgement of receipt by the OIP Director at the recent public FOIA meeting.
President Biden made public commitments to transparency and has followed through on tax returns, logs, and other disclosures made a down payment in 2021. But as of today, 0 of the 48 recommendations on open government, our coalition made to the transition have been implemented:
https://blueprintforaccountability.us/about-the-accountability-2021-project/
The best time to act on the coalition recommendations was in the first 100 days, or over the first year.
The next best time is now & during Sunshine Week in March, when the administration’s record to date will be at the forefront of Congressional attention and media scrutiny.
I hope the President, VP and other White House officials will join NARA, DoJ, and good government groups across the nation in celebrating freedom of information and upholding the public’s right to know with concrete actions and public commitments in the days & weeks ahead.