Nbadan
03-02-2007, 04:40 PM
A Bipartisan bill for open records just might make Dubya issue another one of them infamous signing statements....
A Tug of War On Presidential Papers' Release
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007; Page A11
A bipartisan proposal targeting White House rules on the release of presidential papers would claw back power over public records from the executive branch, advocates of the bill say.
The House measure, introduced yesterday, would overturn President Bush's 2001 executive order adding layers of review before presidential papers are made public. Historians and archivists say the order has kept thousands of documents from public view.
Bush's order "gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a bill sponsor, said in a statement yesterday. Waxman's co-sponsors include Reps. Todd R. Platts (R-Pa.), William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.).
Bush issued the order after the White House held up the release of 68,000 pages of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library documents in 2001. Under the previous system, the president, former presidents or designees had 30 days to review documents and lodge objections. Bush added reviews by the families of former presidents to the process, and removed the 30-day deadline. He also broadened the rules to encompass vice presidential papers.
Thomas S. Blanton, chief of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said that waiting time for documents from the Reagan Library has soared from 18 months to more than six years since the Bush order, because of the review process and factors such as understaffing at the National Archives.
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030101555.html)
reagan documents? Why would they want to hide documents from the Reagan Administration?
June 9, 2001
WASHINGTON, June 8 — The White House is delaying the release of thousands of pages of old presidential records that detail the confidential advice given Ronald Reagan by his aides, some of whom are now prominent officials in the Bush administration.
The records were to be disclosed on Jan. 21 under the Presidential Records Act, adopted after Watergate to deal with issues created by President Richard M. Nixon's assertion that he owned his administration's papers.
But after President Bush took office, the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, delayed the documents' release until June 21 so that they could be reviewed. And a White House spokeswoman, Anne Womack, said today that the administration had recently arranged for another extension, until Aug. 31 at the earliest.
The Presidential Records Act, made law in 1978, provided that documents dealing with White House aides' advice to a president were to be released 12 years after the end of his administration. The Reagan administration is the first to which the law applies.
But under an executive order signed in the closing days of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the incumbent administration at the time of the scheduled release may delay it in order to review the documents and so determine whether to invoke executive privilege to prevent their disclosure outright.
Ms. Womack, the Bush spokeswoman, said today that "the reason for the extension is to conduct a legal review of the documents at the Justice Department."
A Tug of War On Presidential Papers' Release
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007; Page A11
A bipartisan proposal targeting White House rules on the release of presidential papers would claw back power over public records from the executive branch, advocates of the bill say.
The House measure, introduced yesterday, would overturn President Bush's 2001 executive order adding layers of review before presidential papers are made public. Historians and archivists say the order has kept thousands of documents from public view.
Bush's order "gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a bill sponsor, said in a statement yesterday. Waxman's co-sponsors include Reps. Todd R. Platts (R-Pa.), William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.).
Bush issued the order after the White House held up the release of 68,000 pages of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library documents in 2001. Under the previous system, the president, former presidents or designees had 30 days to review documents and lodge objections. Bush added reviews by the families of former presidents to the process, and removed the 30-day deadline. He also broadened the rules to encompass vice presidential papers.
Thomas S. Blanton, chief of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said that waiting time for documents from the Reagan Library has soared from 18 months to more than six years since the Bush order, because of the review process and factors such as understaffing at the National Archives.
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030101555.html)
reagan documents? Why would they want to hide documents from the Reagan Administration?
June 9, 2001
WASHINGTON, June 8 — The White House is delaying the release of thousands of pages of old presidential records that detail the confidential advice given Ronald Reagan by his aides, some of whom are now prominent officials in the Bush administration.
The records were to be disclosed on Jan. 21 under the Presidential Records Act, adopted after Watergate to deal with issues created by President Richard M. Nixon's assertion that he owned his administration's papers.
But after President Bush took office, the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, delayed the documents' release until June 21 so that they could be reviewed. And a White House spokeswoman, Anne Womack, said today that the administration had recently arranged for another extension, until Aug. 31 at the earliest.
The Presidential Records Act, made law in 1978, provided that documents dealing with White House aides' advice to a president were to be released 12 years after the end of his administration. The Reagan administration is the first to which the law applies.
But under an executive order signed in the closing days of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the incumbent administration at the time of the scheduled release may delay it in order to review the documents and so determine whether to invoke executive privilege to prevent their disclosure outright.
Ms. Womack, the Bush spokeswoman, said today that "the reason for the extension is to conduct a legal review of the documents at the Justice Department."