Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Watchdogs Say Transparency Efforts Fall Short

By Eugene Mulero and Kristin Coyner

Thanks to a website launched in January, the public for the first time has a centralized location to track bills on the House floor. It’s the latest step Congressional leaders have taken to open up the legislative process.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the site a “victory for open government.” Leading government watchdog groups say it isn’t nearly enough and fear lawmakers might actually be going in the opposite direction when it comes to transparency.

Exhibit A for those groups: the series of behind-closed-doors meetings held last year by the much-hyped Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction.

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_88/Watchdogs-Say-Transparency-Efforts-Fall-Short-211994-1.html?pos=hbtxt

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