Washington, D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) today submitted a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request to the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) seeking access to the more than 100,000 public comments OMB collected regarding “improvements to the organization and functioning of the Executive Branch.”
Between May and June, 2017, Americans were invited to submit suggestions to OMB in response to President Trump’s March 13 executive order calling for a comprehensive plan to reorganize the Executive Branch. The comments, however, have not been made publicly available.
CoA Institute President and CEO John Vecchione: “Public input can be a fundamental component of government reform, but there is little reason to sacrifice transparency. Given that President Trump’s executive order calls for the possible overhaul of the entire Executive Branch, the need for transparency and open public scrutiny of this matter is paramount.”
In addition to the regulations.gov website, which is routinely used by the federal government for gathering public comments, OMB also collected comments via an online form housed on a White House website. There appears to be a discrepancy between the reported number of comments and suggestions submitted via the reorganizing website, which states that “100,000+ suggestions and ideas” were submitted, and regulations.gov, which states that only 2,019 comments were received.
CoA Institute today requested access to all comments, suggestions, and ideas submitted to the OMB as part of this effort. The FOIA request is available here.
For information regarding this press release, please contact Zachary Kurz, Director of Communications: zachary.kurz@causeofaction.org
