FOIA backers on Capitol Hill

From the Winter 2007 issue of The News Media & The Law, page 5.

The key figures who could play a part in FOIA reform bills.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) co-sponsored the OPEN Government Act, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. He is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which puts him in position to shepherd through FOIA reform laws.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, supports access laws and has created a new subcommittee focusing on transparency. During the last Congress, he proposed ambitious FOIA reform legislation.