Eagle Editorial Board
Like many Americas, we have expressed frustration with the extreme partisanship rampant in our nation's capital. The Democrats won't work with the Republicans and the Republicans won't work with the Democrats.
The result is gridlock on so many issues of critical importance to Americans or heavy-handedness on the part of whichever party is in power at the moment.
That is part of the reason why the in-troduction of a bill designed to speed up open records re-quests for documents kept by the federal government is such good news.
The bill is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the conservative Texas Republican, and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the liberal Vermont Democrat.
Their partnership isn't really that surprising; the two senators have long been promoters of open government and have joined forces in the past to pass Freedom of Information Act legislation.
In 2005, Cornyn and Leahy introduced the Faster FOIA Act, which failed that year but was reintroduced on Monday to coincide with Sunshine Week. More on that in a bit.
The Faster FOIA Act is designed to make the process of releasing requested information faster and make it uniform from department to department and agency to agency in the federal government.
The act would establish a Commission on Freedom of Information Act Proces-sing Delays, which would be mandated to provide Congress with ways to make agency responses quicker, something everyone who has ever requested information from the government should applaud.
The commission also will be tasked with reviewing the fees charged for providing information to make sure they are fair and uniform.
Last year, Leahy and Cornyn passed the OPEN Government Act which provides greater transparency on what information Congress has exempted from release.
We are glad that the two senators feel so strongly about open government that they will put aside party and philosophical differences to work for the good of all Americans -- something we wish all lawmakers could do.
As mentioned, this is the sixth annual Sunshine Week, a time to celebrate openness in government and to recommit ourselves to ensuring that the owners of this government -- the people of America -- have full access to almost everything the government is doing on our behalf. Save sensitive material secret for security reasons, we have the right to know what is being done in our name and with our money.
While it is the news media that most often tout open government laws, they are there to benefit and protect all of us. In fact, the vast majority of requests made for information under open records acts come, not from the media, but from average citizens seeking information on everything from Social Security and veterans benefits to their ancestors.
In some 10 months, the Texas Legis-lature will meet in regular session. No doubt there once again will be several efforts to amend the state's open government laws to make it harder for Texans to get the information they need when they need it. Every session, there are those who would prefer they be allowed to conduct public business in private.
It is up to all of us to resist those efforts for they harm all of us.
Government works best when it does so in the bright sunshine of openness. Let your lawmakers know you expect the sun to keep shining on what they and others in government at every level do.
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