Predecessor Tells Kundra What Lies Ahead
BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, April 29 2009
Yesterday, a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee held a hearing that was effectively a chance for out-going OMB e-government administrator Karen Evans to warn her successor, Vivek Kundra, about what lies ahead for him. She's been there, he's going to have to do that, so she may as well share what she's learned along the way. For all the excitement over Kundra's appointment in these parts, it's grounding to see the senators who turned up for the session. If the video is to be believed, it was a grand total of two: subcommittee chair Tom Carper of Delaware and Illinois's Roland Burris. Even with the meager audience, Evans admitted that it was "liberating to be here as a private citizen" so that she might open up about the tough job of dragging government IT into the 21st century. A sample:
[In some cases] the law will need to be changed to accommodate collaboration between the people and the people's government. For example, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, which was intended to reduce the burden of collecting information from the public, effectively prevents agencies from gathering feedback or user-generated content online. Adding a website survey requires an approval process which includes a public comment period. It's a Catch-22; we ask the public to comment on whether we can ask for their comments.
Evans goes with Joseph Heller; Kafka gets you there as well. Indeed, on a number of fronts, Kundra is going to find what he wants to do to make government more collaborative and transparent is going to take Congress going along with changes in law and regulation. And that will take the active support of a bunch more members than Tom Carper and Roland Burris.