All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

The Obama administration today made good on an earlier promise to make government agencies more responsive to requests to release documents to the public.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he was overturning the stricter guidelines employed by the Bush White House when it came to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applications. In a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies, Holder instructed government workers to apply "a presumption of disclosure" when handling FOIA requests.

“The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities, and these new guidelines will ensure they are able to obtain that information under principles of openness and transparency,” Holder said in a statement announcing the new guidelines.

In his memo, Holder said that agencies must release information unless doing so is specifically prohibited by law.

The Freedom of Information Act was established in 1967. News organizations and watchdog groups rely on it to access government information that they believe should be shared with the broader public.

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If you work in the White House and make more than $100,000, don't expect a raise anytime soon.

President Obama today announced that he is freezing the pay of aides making more than that amount, a group that includes the White House chief of staff, national security adviser and press secretary, according to the Associated Press.

"Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington," the president said.

The salary freeze wasn't the only thing Mr. Obama announced at an afternoon event, which also featured the swearing in of White House aides by Vice President Joe Biden. He announced a number of steps he said "represent a clean break from business as usual."

Among the announcements were new rules concerning lobbyists, including a requirement that aides not lobby the White House after they leave for at least two years.

In addition, current administration employees will be barred from working on issues on which they have lobbied in the past, and lobbyists will be forbidden from giving gifts of any size to members of the administration.

The rules on lobbyists are tighter "than under any other administration in history," Mr. Obama said, according to the AP.

The president also said he was altering policy when it comes to Freedom Of Information Act requests so that government agencies and departments are more responsive to the requests.

"For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city," the president said.

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