CAGW issues new set of FOIA requests to ten remaining AGs

(Washington, D.C.) – As nine states and the District of Columbia prolong the Microsoft litigation despite a proposed settlement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and nine other states, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today issued new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the remaining states demanding an accounting of their expenditures.  In June 1999, CAGW sent FOIA requests to the 19 states then involved in the suit.

"The attorneys general are the peoples' lawyers.  No other attorney could get away with refusing to reveal their costs to their clients, yet the last time CAGW asked the states to reveal their expenses, the responses were sporadic and uninformative.  In fact, of the ten remaining plaintiffs, only West Virginia provided a substantive response to the 1999 FOIA request, and California and Connecticut failed to respond at all," CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  "Now, when nine of their colleagues and the DOJ have agreed to end this litigation and relieve taxpayers of further fiscal burden, the remaining plaintiffs should immediately let the citizens of their states know how much of their money is at stake."

The expenditures in the case could be significant.  The state of California hired Williams and Connelly, a high-priced Washington-based law firm, to pursue the alternative remedy proposed by the remaining states.  Unlike the initial phases of the litigation, when outside counsel apparently charged a reduced rate, no one knows what the states are paying for their current legal advice or any of their other expenses.

"Taxpayers in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah, and West Virginia deserve an answer to the question of how much the states are spending on this continuing lawsuit.  The states have proposed a draconian remedy and issued subpoenas seeking millions of pages of documents from Microsoft, which will drag the case out at considerable cost.  In fact, the states, in just the remedy phase of the trial, have issued twice as many requests for documents as the 19 states working together requested during the entire liability phase of the trial.  In addition, they have issued subpoenas for the first time to third parties not involved in the lawsuit, including CAGW and other nonprofits," Schatz added.

"CAGW members — and all citizens — in these remaining states should be outraged to learn that at the same time the attorneys general have been reluctant to reveal information about their own activities in this matter, they are using tax dollars to initiate sweeping document requests to third parties asking for virtually everything they have done in relation to the Microsoft lawsuit since 1997," Schatz concluded.  "It's time for these AGs to come clean."

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.