side note: Allowing any president to seal their records goes against everything our country supposedly stands for…..
Statesman.com
EDITORIAL BOARD
With the strong support of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, Congress may repeal one of the worst abuses of power in the Bush administration.
In his first year in the White House, Bush issued an executive order giving presidents, vice presidents and their heirs the power to block the release of White House records. That order sealed White House records that have been public dating back to the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration in the 1970s.
Acting on the public’s right to know what government is doing, Cornyn, a Senate committee and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives support a repeal of Bush’s order making White House records secret. The repeal act passed the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee this week and goes before the full Senate next.
Bush, whose administration embraces secrecy at every turn, has vowed to veto the repeal act. But the House version of the law, HR 1255, was approved by a veto-proof 333-93 vote in March. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said the bill may have to be amended in the Senate but it could pass by a veto-proof margin as well.
“This bill is a tribute to freedom of information and the timely release of materials essential to self-governance,” he said in a written statement after the committee vote.
The Senate version of the bill, S.886, has broad bipartisan support. Co-sponsors include Cornyn, a Republican who generally supports Bush, and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, one of the Senate’s more liberal members. Other co-sponsors are New Hampshire Republican John Sununu and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein.
In 1978, after Watergate, the Presidential Records Act mandated that presidential records would become property of the U.S. government when the president leaves office. They would be transferred to the federal archives, then become available to the public after no more than 12 years.
On Nov. 1, 2001, Bush issued an executive order restricting access to not only presidential records but the vice president’s records, too. Under that order current and former presidents and vice presidents — and their heirs — can keep those records from public scrutiny. Bush’s order devastated the Presidential Records Act.
Cornyn and other members of Congress believe that giving presidents and vice presidents the power to seal their records, possibly forever, is inimical to the public interest and grants them a power that can be easily abused. The papers of presidents and vice presidents are essential parts of the public record.
Keeping those records public also encourages the nation’s top elected officials to act honestly, in accordance with the law and in the public interest. Republicans and Democrats are in general agreement that Bush was wrong to seal White House records.
But Bush’s executive order was in keeping with his penchant for secrecy. His first attorney general, John Ashcroft, ordered federal agencies to reject Freedom of Information Act requests when any pretext could be found to do so. More recently, Vice President Dick Cheney argued that the records of visitors to his government-owned residence be kept secret.
Bush over-reached when he ordered White House records sealed from public view indefinitely. Congress is right to vacate that order with an act making those records public after 12 years, as they have been since 1981.
The Senate should make that position clear to Bush with a vote as resounding as the House vote, one that assures a Bush veto will be overridden.