QuickLaw

 One of the more interesting changes from the Bush to Obama administration relates to transparency in the White House. The Obama Administration has from day one worked to use the White House web portal to create a channel that informs and motivates people interested in policy to keep up and participate.

Those interested in promoting legal reform might take note. Take a look at this post on the White House blog on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I saw two encouraging trends. First, it is easy to read. No abstractions. No legalese. Anyone can understand the argument. Second, it doesn’t just describe what is going to happen. It lays out an argument why we should care. Too bad for the Supreme Court that it casts their Ledbetter decision in a somewhat embarrassing light.

I think this is great stuff (even though there is no link in the blog post to the Ledbetter judgment, and the link to the dissent didn’t work). In my experience, much of the questionable decision making that slows down legal institution learning happens AFTER those in power feel protected because no one is watching. Those outside the decision making process give up having an honest say on what is going on because they know their input is unwelcome. Reform is also about promoting caring. BTW this is a line item for an assessment report that I have never seen.

FOLLOW - A VC has a nice post on the new Senator from New York (replacing Hillary Clinton) - Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand has gotten some bad press (as a nobody, and a loose cannon, and too conservative). But Fred thinks differently — at least Gillibrand posts on her web page the names of everyone who lobby her for earmarks, etc.  More transparency.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Legal Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.