april05c.indd


Ber nadette Murphy W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e  

FOIA News 
The Faster FOIA Act of 2005, introduced by 
U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy 
on March 10, would establish an advisory 
Commission on Freedom of Information Act 
Processing Delays. The commission would be 
charged with reporting to Congress and the 
President its recommendations for steps that 
should be taken to reduce delays in the ad­
ministration of the Freedom of Information 
Act. 

The commission would be comprised of 16 
members; 12 of them would be appointed by 
members of Congress—three by the chairman 
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, three by the 
chairman of the House Government Reform 
Committee, and three each by the ranking mi­
nority member of the two committees. The four 
members of Congress would each be required 
to appoint at least one member to the commis­
sion with experience submitting FOIA requests 
on behalf of nonprofit research or educational 
organizations or news media organizations, and 
at least one member with experience in aca­
demic research in the fields of library science, 
information management, or public access to 
government information. 

The remaining four positions on the com­
mission would be held by designees of the 
attorney general, the director of the offi ce of 
management and budget, the archivist of the 
United States, and the comptroller general. 

The Faster FOIA Act is the latest in a series 
of bipartisan efforts by Senators Cornyn and 
Leahy to promote accountability, accessibility, 
and openness in our federal government.  On 
February 16, the senators introduced the OPEN 
Government Act of 2005.  And on the morn­
ing of March 15, during the fi rst­ever national 
Sunshine Week, Senators Cornyn and Leahy 
convened a Senate Judiciary subcommittee 
hearing to examine both the OPEN Govern­
ment Act and the Faster FOIA Act. 

Bernadette Murphy is communications specialist at ALA’s 
Washington Offi  ce, e-mail: bmurphy@alawash.org 

In related FOIA news, Richard M. Schmidt, 
who devoted a long and illustrious career to the 
pursuit of open government and a free press, 
is the 2005 recipient of the Madison Award. 
Schmidt died in October 2004, and his family 
will accept the award on his behalf. Throughout 
Schmidt’s career, which included positions in 
the legislative and executive branches, he strove 
to push the government toward greater open­
ness and to change attitudes about access. The 
range of issues on which he worked included 
the 1974 Freedom of Information Act, the “Of­
ficial Secrets Act” of 2000, and, most recently, 
provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. 

The Madison Award is presented each year 
by ALA on the anniversary of James Madison’s 
birth to honor those who have championed, 
protected, and promoted public access to 
government information and the public’s right 
to know. 

This year, ALA also presented the inau­
gural Eileen Cooke State and Local Madison 
Award to the Minnesota Coalition on Gov­
ernment Information. The award, named for 
noted ALA Executive Director Eileen Cooke 
and for President James Madison, honors 
those at state and local levels who have 
championed, protected, and promoted public 
access to government information and the 
public’s right to know. 

In the late 1980s, building on the work of 
Cooke—a Minnesota native—a number of ad­
vocates in Minnesota determined to address the 
challenges to access to government information 
at the state and local levels. They established 
the Minnesota Coalition on Government Infor­
mation, which represents a diverse network of 
individuals and agencies committed to access 
in the fullest sense and to the role of the state 
as producer, collector, regulator and provider 
of access. The coalition includes state agen­
cies, librarians and libraries, representatives of 
the press, computer professionals, information 
providers, archivists, and others who care about 
the issues surrounding access to government 
information. 

316C&RL News April 2005

mailto:bmurphy@alawash.org