James Madison’s birthday will be celebrated Wednesday at the Newseum with the induction of a new class of members into the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame, to be hosted by the First Amendment Center. The main focus of the Newseum event will be Madison’s role as author of the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly. The gathering is the centerpiece of this week’s Sunshine Week celebration of the public’s right to know how its business is being conducted by those in government — and why the FOIA is crucial to that process. President Obama promised to make transparency a hallmark of his administration, and one of his first acts as president was signing a much-ballyhooed revision of the Department of Justice’s guidance to federal agencies on administering the FOIA. That law makes government more accountable by making it more transparent, Obama said in signing the new FOIA guidance. Sadly, there’s been more talk than action.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday examining the administration’s performance on the FOIA. Much of the discussion will center on a new Associated Press study that found many more people are filing FOIA requests but fewer of them are getting responses as required by law. “People requested information 544,360 times last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act from the 35 largest agencies, up nearly 41,000 more than the previous year. … But the government responded to nearly 12,400 fewer requests,” AP reported Monday. The White House claims the data mean little because agencies are making more documents public without first requiring an FOIA request to be submitted. That’s called trying to have it both ways on the issue.