FOIA is our guard against the vagaries of shifting workforces and power centers
This isn’t a political statement. Just an observation about politics: If the second Trump presidential term has taught us anything, it’s that government institutions can turn on a dime.
New cabinet secretaries reorganized and proposed dumping some agencies, while new departments were created.
One of those new agencies was DOGE, which came in and hollowed out the federal workforce. Regardless of whether you think that the workforce was bloated, too lean or just right, the fact remains that the reduction in force was of a scale we hadn’t seen before.
Gone were many employees whose institutional knowledge informed their every workday. They may not have all been essential, but they carried with them an understanding about how things were done and why they were done one way and not another. Some knew the laws and regulations they were charged with implementing inside and out. Among them were several inspectors general and FOIA officers. Some FOIA staff were hired back, some offices remain short-staffed, and some who were left to pick up the pieces may not have had the same knowledge or mindset.
It all happened. These are facts.
This hypersonic switch in government structures and personnel should be a wake-up call to lawmakers everywhere that laws shouldn’t be dependent on “good” people to administer them.
This is glaringly obvious in the FOIA/access/transparency space. I wish I had counted how many times this year (and, literally, every year I’ve been doing this) I heard justifications for proposals to take away information that is currently available to the public that could be boiled down to this: Trust us.
Trust us that we will not take advantage of the information we now have total control over. We will make sure no one is doing anything they are not supposed to. We will guarantee that there is no personal gain from having access to information that the public does not. We promise we will only withhold, with precision, that which the law allows, while being completely open to the public.
I want to believe them. I want to believe that they will always do the right thing. And, really, I have no reason to doubt any one person who assured me this session.
But we know, don’t we? We know that, for all their good intentions, there arepeople who do take advantage. Who do misuse their access. Who do rely on confidentiality to hire a brother, rig a contract, or hide mistakes.
FOIA is written not just for today’s government employees and officials but for the ones who come next.
It’s OK to believe in the goodness of the current government workforce, but a future DOGE-like cut here in Virginia could completely change the landscape. Or a new governor with different cabinet secretaries. Or the retirement of a dedicated public servant. Or the new hire of someone calculating how to lay hands on easy taxpayer dollars.
The threat is real. No matter who is in power. No matter who is employed. It can all change on a dime. And FOIA should be our safeguard.