Quigley Hosts Transparency Panel Discussion, “What’s Next in Transparency: 119th Congress”

On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05), Chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, hosted “What’s Next in Transparency: 119th Congress.” Moderated by Law360 Reporter Courtney Bublé, the panel discussion included three government accountability experts.

As the Founder and Chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, Quigley has spent 16 years in Congress leading bipartisan efforts to increase honesty and trust in government.

“The cost of corruption is dollars, but the real cost of corruption is the loss of public trust. That trust has been on steady decline for the last 20 years,” shared Quigley in his opening remarks. “If we can improve the openness in communication between the government and the people, we can build a government that works better for the people.”

The panel’s experts represented a diverse range of views across the political spectrum, including the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Taxpayers Union, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

“Another thing we need to pay attention to is the destruction of records and agencies discontinuing the practice of maintaining certain records,” said Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “You can not get a FOIA response if an agency has destroyed those documents. Or if it has opted to stop creating those records.”

“[Members who commit crimes] don’t lose their pensions until they’re finally convicted. That means many can sit in jail, and appeal, and still collect their taxpayer-funded pension,” said Demian Brady, Vice President of Research at the National Taxpayers Union. “The last piece of transparency we need for that is from the Office of Personnel Management, but they haven’t answered my emails since 2020.”

“Sunlight in government is essential to a functioning democracy,” said Jason Powell, Policy Director at CREW. “As part of DOGE’s efforts to reshape the government, on April 1st the CDC’s entire FOIA office was suspended without prior notice or without a plan for how the statutorily required work would continue. The CDC is now not able to respond to new [FOIA] requests, existing requests, or make statutorily-required proactive disclosures.”

To watch a recording of the event, click here.