FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
FOIFT office
214.977.6658
Senator
John Cornyn to Open FOIFT's
Annual
Conference
U.S.
Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) will be the opening keynote
speaker at the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas'
2006 Bernard and Audre Rapoport FOI State Conference.
Texas
Attorney General Greg
Abbott
will be the featured speaker at the conference's John Henry
Faulk Awards Luncheon.
Partners
for Democracy: Working Together for Government Access
is this year's theme. The event is an opportunity
for citizens and organizations over a broad spectrum of interests
to come together for a singular common cause -- access to
government information.
The
conference is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 8, at the Omni Austin
Hotel Downtown in Austin, Texas. Registration, check-in
and continental breakfast begins at 8 a.m. and the conference
sessions begin at 9 a.m. The first presentation will
be Cornyn's keynote address.
Cornyn
has been a U.S. Senator since 2003 and prior to his service
in Washington, he served three years as the Texas attorney
general. He is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill,
the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006. This
legislation would require all federal agencies with annual
research budgets of more than $100 million to create a public
access policy and have all articles conceived with aide of
those funds to be online within six months of publication.
Cornyn also co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vermont) to help the federal legislative process be more
transparent. The bill requires all “future legislation
containing exemptions to requirements be stated explicitly
within the text of the bill." He also presented
a bill to establish an advisory commission on Freedom of Information
Act Processing Delays and introduced the Openness Promotes
Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2005 (OPEN
Government Act, S. 394).
In
his three years as the Texas attorney general, Cornyn revamped
the open records division by committing to take open government
violators to court, establishing a toll-free hotline for citizen's
open records questions to be answered, and streamlining the
process of ruling on public records requests. In 2001
the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas awarded Cornyn
the prestigious James Madison Award for his excellence in
supporting open government.
Abbott
has continued to improve the open records division by allocating
more resources and hiring additional staff, including the
first attorney solely dedicated to prosecuting open government
violators. Abbott was instrumental in the passage of
the recent bill mandating local and state government officials
to receive open government training. He is also recognized
for his opinion in a 2004 ruling that government agencies
could not use the federal Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) to withhold information deemed
public under the Texas Public Information Act. For his
ongoing efforts to improve open government in Texas, Abbott
was awarded the 2005 James Madison Award by the FOIFT.
The
deadline for the conference registration fee of $100 has been
extended through Aug. 25. The regular conference registration
fee increases to $150 after Aug. 25. Registration includes
all sessions, continental breakfast and the awards luncheon.
Students may audit the conference for free, but the
cost of meals will be assessed. To register or for hotel
information, call the FOIFT office at 214.977.6658 or visit
our Web site, www.foift.org.
The
Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas is a nonprofit
501(c)(3) organization supported through tax-deductible donations
from private citizens, corporations, and foundations.
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