Blueprint for Accountability is a series of recommendations to repair critical gaps in transparency, ethics and oversight and to forge a new path toward a long-lasting accountable government. Previously known as “Accountability 2021,” Blueprint for Accountability builds upon accountability reforms enacted during President Biden’s first year in office, re-emphasizing the most urgent reforms left undone and highlighting recommendations that will ensure reforms outlast any particular presidential administration. (The initial Accountability 2021 recommendations can be found here and a progress report on their implementation is here.)
Accountability—by which we mean democratic institutions that are transparent, ethical and responsive to the public—is foundational to our democratic form of government. It is imperative that the Biden administration prioritizes accountability, and continues to establish and enforce practices throughout the executive branch that uphold the highest standards of openness, integrity and responsiveness while respecting checks and balances and the rule of law. To ensure accountability persists in government policy and practices beyond the next presidential term, the president should actively support legislation that will strengthen accountability protections.
Convened by Open The Government, the Blueprint for Accountability unites experts from organizations working on accountability issues to develop solutions to longstanding gaps and failures in existing transparency, ethics, and oversight laws and practices. The product of these efforts are recommendations to rectify the glaring failures of the current “norms” of governance.
This document is not intended to support or oppose a candidate for office or any question on a ballot, but rather to chart a course consistent with the missions of the organizations participating in this effort and common concern about these issues.