Notes from Inauguration Day

I volunteered for the Presidential Inaugural Committee on Inauguration Day, helping supervise the distribution of approximately 300,000 6"x9" American flags. I got down to the Mall just after 3 AM, and I was ready for the cold, with Ben-Gay heat patches on both of my legs, just above the knee, and a bag full of hand-warmers. Getting into the Mall itself was a bit of a daunting task. We tried to enter at 7th and E Streets NW, close to where our trailer and shipping containers of flags were, and the cops told us we had to walk all the way around the White House, and enter the Mall near the Washington Monument.

On the way over, we passed hundreds of other people trying to figure out how to get into the Mall, constantly stopping and comparing notes to see if anyone had tried 18th Street, past the White House. During one of these conversations, one guy came up and asked if anyone had a phone he could use. Finally, I said he could use mine, but I stood about six inches from him while he called, so I could grab him in case he tried to run off with it. When he told whoever he was calling that he'd probably just sleep on a heating grate for a while, I tensed up, and kept repeating to myself "Don't you dare take advantage of my kindness." But when he was done, he just handed the phone back and thanked me. We moved on and stopped in for some coffee at a Starbucks, which was already packed at 3:30 AM - it was one of the only outposts of warmth, and it was 18 degrees outside.

When we finally made it to 18th and headed south, we came upon one of the most random things I have ever seen. Halfway down one of the empty, sterile streets in Washington's business district, past one of the empty Metro buses the city was using to block off streets (which gave downtown a disaster-flick vibe), twenty-five or thirty people were out in the middle of the street, dancing to the title track from Footloose! We couldn't tell if the music was coming from a bar's PA system, or someone's car stereo, or what, and it was too cold to waste any time trying to find out. We had to just keep moving, and file that away in the part of the brain that stores absurd spectacles we'll almost forget about.

We made it to the trailer around 4:15 or 4:30, and by 5:00, twenty-five or thirty local Girl and Boy Scout troops met us on the Mall to help with the flags. We got moving quickly, because by 5:30, there was already a constant stream of people onto the Mall. By the time the ceremony started, we had the non-ticketed of the Mall covered pretty well. In an era of cynicism and frustration with the federal government, it felt great to see people so excited when we offered them American flags. With thousands of vendors hawking anything and everything Obama-related on every corner of downtown DC (including rip-offs like 5"x8" photos printed on the most average paper stock you can imagine for $5), we got people's attention when we told them that the flags were free. As I joked, it was the best deal in town.

The Inaugural Committee had the sense to play something on the Jumbotrons during the morning, so all the people who got there early would have something to do while they waited, and they aired Sunday's concert at the Lincoln Memorial, which had featured a speech by Obama, and music/appearances from Springsteen with Pete Seeger ("This Land Is Your Land"), Stevie Wonder with Usher, Denzel Washington, U2 performing a song that had been an Obama campaign appearance staple, Beyonce, etc., etc., etc.

Yet, the most "red-state" of the performers seemed to get the biggest applause - Garth Brooks, who played a countrified medley which included "Bye, bye, Ms. American Pie," and "(You Make Me Wanna) Shout." On Tuesday morning, my section (which was probably 60% black, and overwhelmingly Democrats from "blue-states," not exactly Brooks' target demographic) went completely nuts when his taped version of "Shout" came on, with everyone singing along, jumping, and waving their flags. As someone who spent much of his teens and twenties trying to see as many bands as possible, I don't think I've ever witnessed a song elicit that much excitement. All of our energy had been bottled up in the 20-degree weather and the darkness, and Garth Brooks finally uncorked it.

When the ceremony finally started up, and the more famous Democratic Senators came out to sit down, followed by the Obama girls, my section got even more excited, and it turned into an ocean of flags. Every time Senator Feinstein said "The Next President of the United States, Barack Obama," it was greeted with roars by all of us. When the screen showed Bush, most of us looked around awkwardly, not knowing what to say, except for the folks who started singing "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, Good-bye." I waved my flag for him and clapped, and it felt good giving the guy a break for once.

After all this exultation, Obama's stoically realist address was a little anti-climatic, but that definitely seemed intentional. If he had come out beaming, basking in the excitement of the moment, with the economy falling further out from under us each day, he would have appeared out-of-touch. One of Obama's greatest strengths is knowing what he doesn't need to say. He didn't campaign on a platform of "vote for me, because electing a black person would be historic" - he knew that aspect of his candidacy would generate enough excitement on its own. While his address made a reference or two to the civil rights advancements his election represented, he mostly let that obvious triumph speak for itself through the image of a black man taking the oath of office.

Similarly, Obama avoided resting on the laurels of the strong "Bush is finally gone" sentiment, which had been anticipated for years by the popular "1/20/2009" bumper sticker. Obama tapped into that sentiment, by calling for a return to the values and hard work that made America great, but also promised new approaches to pressing issues in areas like the economy, energy, and foreign policy.

For years, my goal for the 2008 election was mostly just to get a president who cared about the way our government is supposed to work - someone who would bring us back to normal (for example, back to being one of the modern, civilized counties which doesn't torture, and off the short list of rogue countries which do), and would make sincere efforts to make government more effective (in contrast to the Bush administration's overt weakening of regulators). Obama has fused strains of that traditionalist mindset with tech-savvy, forward-looking policy approaches, putting more of an emphasis on doing what works than following party orthodoxy.

In fact, pragmatism was at the heart of some of the most important lines of Obama's address: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

During the primary and election, some on the left ridiculed Obama's oft-repeated promise to take a post-partisan, or post-ideological approach, dismissing that kind of talk as a political stunt. Incredibly, the same crowd is up in arms whenever Obama takes a centrist policy approach, gives a Republican credit for having a good idea, or appoints someone they do not consider ideologically pure (like Cass Sunstein, the legal/policy genius who will head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and whose book "Nudge" embodies a lot of my own political values).

In contrast, Obama's post-ideological streak is one of the things that excites me most about his presidency. When I started outragedmoderates.org in 2004, I cited the following textbook definition of "moderate": "someone who weighs each issue on its own, rather than following a strict party line or ideology." President Obama fits squarely into my definition of the term, and if his administration fulfills its promise, one of the lasting examples of "Change" may be a less binary, more nuanced American political conversation.

Obama Should Appoint a Government Transparency Officer

Last week, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the New America Foundation called "Wiki White House." The event was hosted by Google at the company's DC headquarters near the Verizon Center, and the panel members included Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation and Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame.

The New America Foundation has a video of the whole discussion up; I'm going to use this post to discuss some of Miller's comments, and to provide a layman's answer to the first question asked of the panelists: how would you like to see the Obama administration use technology to improve governance?

When asked what would be on her "wishlist," Miller emphasized the need for a Chief Technology Officer, who would have the high-level access necessary to be a forceful advocate for new uses of technology. She added that this needed to happen in the first 100 days.

This struck me as something that will be a key indicator of how serious the administration is about changing government through technology. Given the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, organizational structure is everything: if a policy area like technology does not get a specific place in that pecking order now, it will not get the attention it deserves during the rest of the term, regardless of good intentions at the White House level.

This blogger's wishlist would include not only the naming of a Chief Technology Officer, but also the creation of another post: Government Transparency Officer. The Government Transparency Officer would be a politically independent officer who would serve as an ombudsman of sorts for the American people. The position would be tasked with the following duties:

1) Operate a user-friendly website which would serve a portal for various forms of government information.

The GTO's site would provide links to major government reports, proposed laws and policies, and new Freedom of Information Act releases. Much of this information is already out there somewhere - but most citizens do not know where to look.

The "low-hanging fruit" part of this task would be creating a centralized portal, providing links directing interested citizens to the appropriate existing sources of information, like USASpending.gov (the Google-the-Government site Obama co-sponsored), or the Library of Congress' Thomas system, or the Government Printing Office. As it is now, citizens have to a) know about a site like USASpending.gov, and then b) find it online (and I would bet that even most fans of the "Google-the-Government" legislation do not know the domain name). With a centralized, heavily-publicized GTO site, every citizen would have a starting point from which to learn more about their government. Moreover, the GTO site would feature a user-friendly design geared towards helping citizens find information by topic/issue, instead of requiring that they know specific bill names/numbers or sponsors, as is the case with many government sites.

In addition to directing citizens to information which is already available on government sites, the GTO site would provide links to proposed laws and policies by issue. Take climate change, which will be one of the key issues before Congress this year. There are currently several different major proposals in Congress for fighting climate change, including the Boxer-Saunders bill, the McCain-Lieberman bill, and the Bingaman bill. But just trying to get a good idea of the key differences between the top proposals can be difficult, especially for anyone who isn't a seasoned researcher. For major issues before Congress, the GTO site would compile user-friendly charts providing the key differences between bills, and would provide links for further information the proposals.

Finally, the site would include a central registry of Freedom Of Information Act releases, ideally a searchable database which citizens could sort by agency, topic, or date. Some agencies, like the FBI, already have an electronic reading room which allows citizens to view its most-requested documents. What if there was a central electronic reading room where citizens could view recent FOIA releases from the entire federal government?

After the Wiki White House event, I mentioned this idea to Ellen Miller, and she replied that there had been a push from open government groups to get the federal government to release an ongoing list of FOIA releases by agency. If the government did not agree to release a registry, the GTO could just create its own - asking successful FOIA requesters to send in copies of the documents they receive, along with a notarized statement swearing to the documents' legitimacy, and the GTO would then contact the respective agency to confirm that the documents were indeed released.

2) Serve as an ombudsman who would advocate on behalf of citizens' access to information.

In addition to providing citizens with information, the Government Transparency Officer would serve as a representative of the American people on transparency issues. He or she would publicly weigh in on proposals which impact transparency, by testifying before Congress and/or making media appearances advocating new transparency laws along the lines of the Google-the-Government bill. And if the administration or Congress violated transparency laws, or conducted operations in an unduly secretive manner, the GTO would push back, privately and publicly. Citizens could contact the GTO with transparency questions, and potentially bring to his/her attention issues which warrant action by the officer.

In summary, appointing a Government Transparency Officer would send a strong signal that the Obama administration is serious about changing Washington. The GTO's information portal would bring Washington up to speed with the rest of the internet, giving citizens more access to government information, and just as importantly, easier access to government information, than ever before. As James Madison once wrote (emphasis added): "A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both."

The GTO's ombudsman role would help keep the rest of the federal government in compliance with transparency laws, and it would mean that there was always someone advocating for greater transparency when the administration and/or Congress make new policy. Moreover, giving citizens a transparency ombudsman to file complaints with would be a step towards restoring Americans' faith in government.

Finally, creating a visible, high-ranking Government Transparency Officer post would have a normative effect, reminding American citizens that our democratic system is supposed to be operated in an open, transparent manner. As I noted in a recent summary of the President-Elect's legislative record, improving transparency was arguably the unifying theme of his career in the Illinois State Senate. By creating a high-level post tasked with promoting and defending government transparency, President Obama would build on that record and make a lasting improvement to the operations of the federal government.

UPDATED 3/16/2009:

I meant to update this post back in January, but forgot to. Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation mentioned my proposal in a post on the group's blog on January 21, 2009. Thanks to Ellen for the link/discussion of the GTO proposal, and more importantly, for all the great work with the Sunlight Foundation.