FEDERAL ELECTION

COMMISSION

2015 CHIEF FOIA OFFICER REPORT

FEDERAL ELECTION 

COMMISSION 

2015 CHIEF FOIA OFFICER REPORT 
2015 Chief FOIA Officer Report 

Federal Election Commission 

Gregory R. Baker, Deputy General Counsel – Administration 

Section I: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness 

The guiding principle underlying the President's FOIA Memorandum and the Attorney General's 

FOIA Guidelines is the presumption of openness. 

FOIA Training: 

1. Did your FOIA professionals or the personnel at your agency who have FOIA responsibilities 

attend any FOIA training or conference during the reporting period such as that provided by the 

Department of Justice? 

Yes. FEC FOIA professionals attended training provided by the Department of Justice, 

as well as training provided by the Office of Government Information Services at the 

National Archives and Records Administration. 

2. Provide an estimate of the percentage of your FOIA professionals and staff with FOIA 

responsibilities who attended substantive FOIA training during this reporting period. 

60 percent. 

3. In the 2014 Chief FOIA Officer Report Guidelines, OIP asked agencies to provide a plan for 

ensuring that core, substantive FOIA training is offered to all agency FOIA professionals at 

least once each year. Please provide the status of your agency’s implementation of this plan. 

Consistent with OIP’s guidance that every agency make core, substantive FOIA training 

available to all of their FOIA professionals at least once each year, the FEC has made 

annual training for its FOIA professionals a priority. In Fiscal Year 2014, 60 percent of 

the FEC’s FOIA professionals attended FOIA training. The remaining FOIA 

professionals are registered to attend FOIA training in February of 2015. All FEC FOIA 

professionals have been made aware of the training requirement; and during the next 

performance appraisal period, mandatory participation in annual FOIA training will be 

added to each FOIA professional’s performance plan. 

Discretionary Releases: 

4. Does your agency have a distinct process or system in place to review records for 

discretionary release? 

No. 

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5. During the reporting period, did your agency make any discretionary releases of information? 

Yes. Although the FEC does not have a formal process in place to review records for 

discretionary release, the Agency makes discretionary releases of otherwise exempt 

information on a case-by-case basis in its FOIA responses. Decisions to make 

discretionary releases are made through an informal process in consultation with the 

office or division that created the record. 

6. What exemption(s) would have covered the material released as a matter of discretion? For a 

discussion of the exemptions that allow for discretionary releases, please see OIP’s guidance on 

implementing the President’s and Attorney General’s FOIA Memoranda. 

Exemption 5. 

7. Provide a narrative description, as well as some specific examples, of the types of information 

that your agency released as a matter of discretion during the reporting year. 

The FEC discretionarily released certain internal emails (or portions thereof) among FEC 

staff, which contained information that could have been withheld under the deliberative 

process privilege, where the Agency did not foresee that disclosure would cause harm to 

the Agency’s operations. The FEC also regularly releases in connection with its public 

disclosure of closed enforcement cases, intra-agency memoranda (portions of which 

would be protected by the deliberative process and/or attorney work-product privileges) 

pursuant to the FEC’s Interim Disclosure Policy. 

8. If your agency was not able to make any discretionary releases of information, please explain 

why. 

Not applicable. 

Other Initiatives: 

9. If there are any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the presumption of 

openness is being applied, please describe them here. 

• If any of these initiatives are online, please provide links in your description. 

Section II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency Has an Effective 

System in Place for Responding to Requests 

As the Attorney General emphasized in his FOIA Guidelines, "[a]pplication of the proper 

disclosure standard is only one part of ensuring transparency. Open government requires not just 

a presumption of disclosure, but also an effective system for responding to FOIA requests." It is 

essential that agencies effectively manage their FOIA program. 

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Processing Procedures: 

1. For Fiscal Year 2014, what was the average number of days your agency reported for 

adjudicating requests for expedited processing? Please see Section VIII.A. of your agency's 

Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report. 

4.6 days. 

2. If your agency's average number of days to adjudicate requests for expedited processing was 

above ten calendar days, please describe the steps your agency will take to ensure that requests 

for expedited processing are adjudicated within ten calendar days or less. 

Not applicable. 

Requester Services: 

3. Does your agency notify requesters of the mediation services offered by the Office of 

Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives and Records 

Administration? See OIP Guidance, “Notifying Requesters of the Mediation Services Offered by 

OGIS." (July 9, 2010) 

Yes. The FEC’s FOIA Requester Service Center notifies requesters of the mediation 

services offered by OGIS as part of the Agency's final response to an administrative 

appeal. 

4. When assessing fees, does your agency provide a breakdown of how FOIA fees were 

calculated and assessed to the FOIA requester? For example, does your agency explain the 

amount of fees attributable to search, review, and duplication? See OIP Guidance, “The 

Importance of Good Communication with FOIA Requesters 2.0: Improving Both the Means and 

the Content of Requester Communications.” (Nov. 22, 2013) 

Not applicable. The FEC did not assess any FOIA fees during Fiscal Year 2014. 

5. If estimated fees estimates are particularly high, does your agency provide an explanation for 

the estimate to the requester? See id. 

Not applicable. 

Other Initiatives: 

6. If there are any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA system 

operates efficiently and effectively, such as conducting self-assessments to find greater 

efficiencies, improving search processes, eliminating redundancy, etc., please describe them 

here. 

The FEC’s FOIA Requester Service Center has sought assistance from the Agency’s 

Office of the Chief Information Officer to conduct more centralized searches for emails 

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responsive to FOIA requests, where appropriate, rather than relying on individual 

employees to search their own documents. 

Section III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures 

Both the President and Attorney General focused on the need for agencies to work proactively to 

post information online without waiting for individual requests to be received. 

Posting Material: 

1. Does your agency have a distinct process or system in place to identify records for proactive 

disclosure? If so, please describe your agency’s process or system. 

Yes. The FEC utilizes a formal process, consistent with the Agency’s Interim Disclosure 

Policy, 68 Fed. Reg. 70,426 (Dec. 18, 2003), for proactively disclosing closed 

Enforcement, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Administrative Fines cases files within 

30 days of case closure. Other types Agency records are identified for proactive 

disclosure through an informal process. 

2. Does your process or system involve any collaboration with agency staff outside the FOIA 

office? If so, describe this interaction. 

No. 

3. Describe your agency’s process or system for identifying “frequently requested” records that 

should be posted online. 

The FEC generally does not receive many FOIA requests for the same documents.. 

However, the Agency’s FOIA Requester Service Center monitors its FOIA request log, 

and when frequently requested records are identified, they will be posted to the 

Commission’s website. 

4. Provide examples of material that your agency has proactively disclosed during the past 

reporting year, including links to the posted material. 

In Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC continued to proactively post updated information on its 

website regarding the Agency’s enforcement and compliance processes---reporting 

thresholds, manuals, and other procedural guidance—to make the FEC’s processes more 

transparent to the public. This information is available at the following link: 

http://www.fec.gov/law/procedural_materials.html. 

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Other Initiatives: 

5. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to increase proactive disclosures, please 

describe them here. 

None. 

Section IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology 

A key component of the President's FOIA Memorandum was the direction to "use modern 

technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government." In addition 

to using the internet to make proactive disclosures, agencies should also be exploring ways to 

utilize technology in responding to requests. 

Making Material Posted Online More Useful: 

1. Beyond posting new material, is your agency taking steps to make the posted information 

more useful to the public, especially to the community of individuals who regularly access your 

agency’s website? 

Yes. 

2. If yes, please provide examples of such improvements. 

During Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC launched a website improvement initiative in 

partnership with 18F, a digital services delivery team in the General Services 

Administration, with the goal of enhancing the public’s access to and the delivery of 

campaign finance data. As part of this initiative, on September 17, 2014, the FEC hosted 

a public forum to seek broad public input for its effort to improve access to information 

through a redesign of the Agency’s website. Members of the public are also able to find 

information about the website improvement initiative and submit recommendations 

through a page on 18F’s website: https://github.com/18F/openFEC. 

3. Has your agency encountered challenges that make it difficult to post records you otherwise 

would like to post? 

No. 

4. If so, please briefly explain what those challenges are. 

Not applicable. 

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Other Initiatives: 

5. Did your agency successfully post all four quarterly reports for Fiscal Year 2014? 

Yes, the FEC successfully posted all four quarterly reports for Fiscal Year 2014. 

6. If your agency did not successfully post all quarterly reports, with information appearing on 

FOIA.gov, please explain why and provide your agency’s plan for ensuring that such reporting 

is successful in Fiscal Year 2015. 

Not Applicable. 

7. Do your agency's FOIA professionals use e-mail or other electronic means to communicate 

with requesters whenever feasible? See OIP Guidance, “The Importance of Good 

Communication with FOIA Requesters 2.0: Improving Both the Means and the Content of 

Requester Communications.” (Nov. 22, 2013) If yes, what are the different types of electronic 

means are utilized by your agency to communicate with requesters? 

Yes, the FEC’s FOIA professionals use email to communicate with requesters whenever 

feasible. 

8. If your agency does not communicate electronically with requesters as a default, are there any 

limitations or restrictions for the use of such means? If yes, does your agency inform requesters 

about such limitations? See id. 

Not Applicable. 

Section V: Steps Taken to Improve Timeliness in 

Responding to Requests and Reducing Backlogs 

The President and the Attorney General have emphasized the importance of improving 

timeliness in responding to requests. This section your Chief FOIA Officer Report addresses 

both time limits and backlog reduction. Backlog reduction is measured both in terms of numbers 

of backlogged requests or appeals and by looking at whether agencies closed their ten oldest 

requests, appeals, and consultations. 

Simple Track: Section VII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled “FOIA Requests – 

Response Time for All Processed Requests,” includes figures that show your agency's average 

response times for processed requests. For agencies utilizing a multi-track system to process 

requests, there is a category for “simple” requests, which are those requests that are placed in the 

agency’s fastest (non-expedited) track, based on the low volume and/or simplicity of the records 

requested. 

1. Does your agency utilize a separate track for simple requests? 

Yes. 

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2. If so, for your agency overall in Fiscal Year 2014, was the average number of days to process 

simple requests twenty working days or fewer? 

In Fiscal Year 2014, the average number of days for the FEC to process simple requests 

was 23.5 days. 

3. Please provide the percentage of requests processed by your agency in Fiscal Year 2014 that 

were placed in your simple track. 

90.8 Percent. 

4. If your agency does not track simple requests separately, was the average number of days to 

process all non-expedited requests twenty working days or fewer? 

Not applicable. 

BACKLOGGED REQUESTS 

5. If your agency had a backlog of requests at the close of Fiscal Year 2014, did that backlog 

decrease as compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2013? 

At the close of Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC had 30 backlogged FOIA requests, which is 18 

more than the FEC had at the end of Fiscal Year 2013. The increase in the FEC’s FOIA 

request backlog is due to a continued increase in the number of FOIA requests received 

by the Agency, as well as a decrease in the number of Agency FOIA professionals. The 

FEC received 98 FOIA requests in Fiscal Year 2014, whereas the Agency had received 

87 FOIA requests during Fiscal Year 2013 and only 60 requests during Fiscal Year 2012. 

The FEC also lost a very experienced FOIA attorney during the second quarter of Fiscal 

Year 2014, and was unable to fill this position until the beginning of Fiscal Year 2015. 

6. If you had a request backlog please report the percentage of requests that make up the 

backlog out of the total number of requests received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2014. If your 

agency did not receive any requests in Fiscal Year 2014 and/or has no request backlog, please 

answer with "N/A." 

30.6 percent 

BACKLOGGED APPEALS 

7. If your agency had a backlog of appeals at the close of Fiscal Year 2014, did that backlog 

decrease as compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2013? 

At the close of Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC had four backlogged FOIA appeals, which is 

one more than the FEC had at the end of Fiscal Year 2013. The increase in the FEC’s 

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FOIA appeal backlog is due to a 33 percent increase in the number of appeals received by 

the Agency, as well as the loss of an experienced FOIA attorney. 

8. If you had an appeal backlog please report the percentage of appeals that make up the 

backlog out of the total number of appeals received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2014. If your 

agency did not receive any appeals in Fiscal Year 2014 and/or has no appeal backlog, please 

answer with "N/A." 

100 percent. 

TEN OLDEST REQUESTS 

9. In Fiscal Year 2014, did your agency close the ten oldest requests that were reported pending 

in your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report? 

No. 

10. If no, please provide the number of these requests your agency was able to close by the end 

of the fiscal year, as listed in Section VII.E of your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report. If 

you had less than ten total oldest requests to close, please indicate that. 

During Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC closed two of the 10 oldest requests pending at the end 

of Fiscal Year 2013. 

11. Of the requests your agency was able to close from your ten oldest, please indicate how 

many of these were closed because the request was withdrawn by the requester. If any were 

closed because the request was withdrawn, did you provide any interim responses prior to the 

withdrawal? 

None. 

TEN OLDEST APPEALS 

12. In Fiscal Year 2014, did your agency close the ten oldest appeals that were reported pending 

in your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report? 

No. 

13. If no, please provide the number of these appeals your agency was able to close by the end of 

the fiscal year, as listed in Section VII.C.(5) of your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report. If 

you had less than ten total oldest appeals to close, please indicate that. 

During Fiscal Year 2014, the FEC closed two of the three “oldest” appeals reported in its 

Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report. 

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TEN OLDEST CONSULTATIONS 

14. In Fiscal Year 2014, did your agency close the ten oldest consultations that were reported 

pending in your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report? 

The FEC did not have any pending consultations at the end of Fiscal Year 2013. 

15. If no, please provide the number of these consultations your agency was able to close by the 

end of the fiscal year, as listed in Section XII.C. of your Fiscal Year 2013 Annual FOIA Report. 

If you had less than ten total oldest consultations to close, please indicate that. 

Not applicable. 

Additional Information on Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations & Plans: 

16. Briefly explain any obstacles your agency faced in closing its ten oldest requests, appeals, 

and consultations from Fiscal Year 2013. 

Seven of the eight oldest FOIA requests from Fiscal Year 2013 that were not closed in 

Fiscal Year 2014 involved requests for voluminous records. The remaining request 

related to Agency records that were more than three decades old and required extensive 

searching to locate information concerning the records. That request was closed by the 

FEC in early-2015. With respect to one of the oldest pending requests, the FEC is also 

awaiting a response from another agency on a consultation. More generally, the FEC 

encountered difficulties in closing its oldest FOIA requests and appeals due to the fact 

that the Agency’s does not have dedicated FOIA professionals, and the attorneys and 

paralegals that run the FEC’s FOIA Requester Service Center had many competing high 

priority assignments during Fiscal Year 2014. 

17. If your agency was unable to close any of its ten oldest requests because you were waiting to 

hear back from other agencies on consultations you sent, please provide the date the request was 

initially received by your agency, the date when your agency sent the consultation, and the date 

when you last contacted the agency where the consultation was pending. 

The FOIA request as to which the FEC is awaiting a response from another agency on a 

consultation was received by the FEC on June 9, 2011. The consultation was sent to the 

other agency on July 28, 2011, and the FEC’s last documented contact with the agency 

before the close of Fiscal Year 2014 was on July 29, 2011. The FEC FOIA Requester 

Service Center contacted the agency again in early-2015. 

18. If your agency did not close its ten oldest pending requests, appeals, or consultations, please 

provide a plan describing how your agency intends to close those “ten oldest” requests, appeals, 

and consultations during Fiscal Year 2015. 

The FEC’s FOIA Requester Service Center has made closing its oldest FOIA requests a 

top priority for Fiscal Year 2015. FEC’s FOIA professionals are actively working on the 

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Agency’s two oldest FOIA requests with a goal of closing both requests by the end of the 

third quarter, and last month the FEC closed the third oldest request reported in its FOIA 

Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2014. The FEC then plans to address the remaining five 

“oldest” requests in the order of receipt. The oldest pending FOIA appeal relates to a 

FOIA request was closed during Fiscal Year 2014, and as such the FEC anticipates that 

this appeal will soon be closed. 

Use of the FOIA’s Law Enforcement Exclusions 

Did your agency invoke a statutory exclusion, 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1), (2), (3), during Fiscal Year 

2014? 

No. 

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