President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team will publicize any official meetings staffers have with outside interest groups and will post online any policy documents those groups present during those meetings, according to new rules the transition team put in place Friday.
“Every day, we meet with organizations who present ideas for the transition and the administration, both orally and in writing. We want to ensure that we give the American people a ’seat at the table’ and that we receive the benefit of their feedback,” transition chief John Podesta wrote in a memo to his staff, obtained by The Washington Times.
The rules apply to “official meetings,” which Mr. Podesta defined as those where at least three of the participants are from outside organizations. Any written document those in attendance present to the transition team will also be be posted on the Web site www.Change.gov.
Mr. Podesta said transition staff should consider the rules “a floor, not a ceiling,” and should consider posting documents even from meetings that don’t meet the standard of at least three outside participants.
Mr. Obama has vowed to run an open transition process and to allow more sunlight on the way his administration operates once he takes office. During the Democratic primaries he contrasted that with the way Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his then-rival and now his nominee to be secretary of State, ran her health care task force when her husband was president.
“That’s what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are,” Mr. Obama said in one of their debates.
Democrats have also criticized the way Vice President Dick Cheney led a task force to craft energy policy for President Bush, arguing his efforts at secrecy mimicked Mrs. Clinton’s health care efforts.
Mr. Podesta said transition staffers will alert attendees at any official meetings that any documents they present will be posted online.
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