Just Do It

Editorial Sunday Shorts

Publication: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Joe Copeland
March 23, 2008

Speaking of democracy, one key is public information. The administration has been a disaster, but Congress -- despite some improvements -- is not exactly a leader in openness and transparency. A good start would be for Congress to provide as much information on the Internet as a lot of the state legislatures do. The Sunlight Foundation (sunlightfoundation.com) is, among other things, pushing Congress to create one centralized schedule for all committee hearings. Gosh, how 20th century that would be. Sunlight's reform agenda also includes a call for electronic filing of campaign receipts and expenses, which would be released within 24 hours. Congress could do that in time for the next election -- assuming, optimistically, that members wanted to.