McCaskill Announces Intent to Open Closed Committee Mark-Ups

Press Release

Today, McCaskill announced her intention to further open up the federal legislative process and make it possible for Americans to better understand how their tax dollars are allocated and federal law is made. McCaskill plans in the coming months to try to close a loophole that currently allows committees to use a rule related to classified materials as a means to shut out the public and the press from business meetings.

In short, committees, which rightly move into closed session to consider classified material, often also keep those meetings closed for extended periods of time when no classified material is discussed. McCaskill believes meetings should be closed only when the sensitive material is being discussed.

"Americans have the right to know what is happening in their government," McCaskill said. "We cannot justify shutting people out of committee mark-ups. We are spending their hard-earned tax dollars and we work for them."

The issue came to her attention in her first year in office when the Senate Armed Services Committee closed their entire meeting to consider the bill that authorizes funding for the Department of Defense, under the premise that members of Congress might briefly address classified matters. McCaskill quickly moved to open any part of the meeting that was not classified, the first of her efforts to open a closed hearing.

While McCaskill fully agrees that classified or other sensitive national security information should be addressed in a closed session, she also believes that the classified materials exemption for closing hearings should not be abused to prevent the public from having access to other, non-sensitive parts of Senate meetings, something that has occurred in the past.

McCaskill has repeated her attempts to open these Armed Services Committee meetings since. Today, she made public her intention to continue such efforts in the future, including when the committee meets to consider the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which will likely occur this summer.

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