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Hullabaloo — ... in the transition team's meeting with community organizers and activists yesterday. Plus, they're providing open access to all meetings, documents, and position papers from various groups, as well as offering the ability to post comments about them. ...

The Other Transition: Whither Obama's Movement?
techPresident — ... , posting the names of the outside groups lobbying the transition as well as the text of their position papers, asking for comments on same--the transition to OFA2, which seems to be de facto centered in Chicago, has been a totally top-down, one-way affair. ...

Who's Knocking on Obama's Door?
The Caucus — As interest groups and advisers parade in and out of President-elect Barack Obama’s offices in Chicago, the transition team has created a Web site for people to see who’s coming in, and what’s coming out of those meetings. The site, called Your Seat at the Table , lists the groups coming in for meetings, provides links to materials those groups presented to Mr. Obama’s staff, and offers a forum for public comment. The directive is retroactive from Election Day, according to a memorandum to staff from John Podesta, co-chairman of the transition, obtained by The ...

Obama Makes Early Demands of Special Interests Public
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo — ... . It is posting the policy proposals it is receiving from special interest groups on a section of its website called "Your Seat at the Table." What is the teacher's union demanding on education reform, for example? Not only can you find out on the transition's site, you can comment on the union's proposals and submit your own ideas on the subject. ...

Transparency in the Transition team
The Next Right — ... Next, the transition team introduced their Seat at the Table feature. At first glance, “Your Seat at the Table” might look like a kitschy PR portal. What is the entire change.gov site supposed to be, if not a seat at the table? A closer look, however, reveals that this specific feature is in fact different from the rest of the site — it’s the result of a significant policy change. ...

Republicans Want Obama To Release Communication Between Blagojevich And Transition Team
Say Anything — Which shouldn’t be a problem for Obama, right?  Because he’s the transparent President. Right? COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson today called on President-elect Barack Obama to uphold his pledge of expanded transparency and release any records of discussions between the Obama-Biden transition office and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich regarding the appointment of Obama’s successor to the United States Senate.  Today, Governor Blagojevich and his Chief of ...

Matt Lewis: RNC Chair Candidates on Blagojevich
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — ... , federal authorities say Governor Blagojevich sought to “leverage” President-elect Obama’s transition team as Governor Blagojevich considered who to appoint to the U.S. Senate. Last week, the Obama-Biden Transition Team announced a “Your Seat at the Table” transparency policy and promised to make public “any documents from official meetings with outside organizations…for people to review and comment on.” As of noon today, a search for “Blagojevich” on that site turned up no results.

ProPublica: Obama & Transparency: Walking the Talk
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — President-elect Barack Obama's transition team seems to be following through with its promise of transparency by posting documents from its meetings with industry and advocacy groups. The documents are on a special section of the transition team Web site, change.gov, called Your Seat at the Table. Already, dozens of documents are posted on the site from groups outlining policy recommendations for the new administration. There are some from industry groups, but a wide variety of interests have also come to the table. Here are a few ...

A seat at Obama's table
Citizen Crain — ... In keeping with his campaign promise for open government, Barack Obama has initiated a feature on his transition website called Your Seat at the Table. Here you can track all meetings the Transition Team has with any outside group and view any documents that any special interest group has given to the Obama team. In the past these meetings have been secret, but now all meetings and documents from those meetings will be available to the public. When I first received the email from John Podesta, co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Project announcing Seat at the Table, I ...

The Right Response to the Obama/Blago Connection
The Next Right — ... and hold Obama's feet to the fire on disclosing everything -- in a "trust but verify" kind of way. We need to find ways to turn Democratic screw ups into positive Republican alternatives that rebuild our trust with voters. While I think there has to be a nod to the reality that Obama was not directly involved in any of Blago's dealings, we need to be ready to call out any slippage or dissembling in the disclosure timeline. The transition has laudably posted documents from its meetings with outside interest groups. Will it do the same for its internal deliberations and ...

Overnight News from around the Blagosphere
Doug Ross @ Journal — ... let, let me, let me just cut you off, 'cause I don't want you to waste your question. Uh, as I indicated yesterday, we've done a full review of this, the, the, the facts are gonna be released next week, it would be inappropriate for me to comment, uh, because, the, for example, the the story you just talked about in your own paper, uh, I haven't confirmed it was accurate, and I don't want to get into the details at this point, so do you have another question?" What happened to " My Seat at the Table "? A ...

Daily Digest: Walking the Participatory Government Walk
techPresident — ... . The top-rated policy ideas will, said Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett in an introductory video, be compiled and presented to the new President after he takes the oath of office. But somewhat unlike past experiments like Seat at the Table and ...