In Transition

Some of the documents are more helpful than others. A Business Roundtable document, for example, is just a press release praising Obama for picking Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary. But another, vaguely titled “Transition Letter Funding Request,” turns out to be nine members of Congress asking Obama to include $50 million for the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies in his fiscal 2010 budget.

And the NEA document captures the demanding tone of the group’s lobbying efforts: “NEA should be intimately involved from the beginning in discussions on any issues that impact our members. We would like to provide input before proposals are drafted, rather than simply reacting to already drafted proposals.”

The new disclosure policy is certainly a way of making good on Obama’s campaign promises of open government, but it’s also a way of putting the greatest possible distance between the new administration and Vice President Dick Cheney, who famously refused to release the names of the people and groups who had advised his energy task force. Obama specifically cited the Cheney example in his campaign proposal to increase transparency in government.

“It signals to the public that this is going to be an open administration, not just in the White House, but throughout the executive branch,” said Ellen Miller, co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation, a group that advocates greater openness in government.

But how much of this openness in the transition team can actually transfer to the new administration? Obama promised to require his executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to “conduct the significant business of the agency in public,” including posting videos and transcripts of the meetings online.

But even Obama will have to draw the line somewhere, since every president will still need to receive confidential advice, according to Stephen Wayne, a presidential expert at Georgetown University. “He’s assembled, basically, a White House university, and he’s got his team of experts,” said Wayne. “What they’re saying is, ‘you will have a seat at the table,’ which means you have a chance to state your views.”

Miller agreed that there will always be meetings that have to be conducted out of the public eye, especially the obvious cases — those that involve national security and classified information. “No one expects every meeting to be open,” she said.

Still, Miller said, the prospect of the public being able to examine interest-group advice and determine who’s getting what they want from the Obama administration — especially in this level of detail — is “really mind-blowing.”

— David Nather