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President Bush's executive order



I am forwarding the following article that was originally set to a colleague here at Texas A&M University by someone at the Texas State Library and Archives whose name appears at the end of the article.

Charles

FYI - this article appears in today's Austin newspaper:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suit challenges Bush mandate to restrict presidential records, by Jena
Heath, American-Statesman Staff
Thursday, November 29, 2001

WASHINGTON -- A public interest group filed suit in federal court Wednesday
to block President Bush's effort to limit access to presidential records. 
Public Citizen, which sued on behalf of historians, political scientists,
archivists and journalists, challenged an executive order that Bush issued
Nov. 1 that scholars say will hamper the public's ability to learn how
presidents have made decisions. 
Scott Nelson, a lawyer with Public Citizen, said he is not hopeful that Bush
will rescind or amend the executive order, despite a Dec. 7 meeting that
political scientists, historians and archivists are planning with Chief
White House Counsel Al Gonzales to discuss the issue. 
"It doesn't seem to me very likely that he's going to be inclined to rescind
it in the absence either of some action by Congress . . . or an order of a
court declaring that it's unlawful," Nelson said. "I'd love to think that
the White House would see the force of our arguments and withdraw the order
voluntarily, but the likelihood of that happening is fairly small." 
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said Bush's order "establishes sensible
procedures" for the review of presidential records. She called it "sound law
and sound policy." 
"The lawsuit that was filed by Public Citizen is, in reality, an attack on
the Supreme Court's 1977 decision, which held that former presidents
continue to have the right to assert constitutional privilege over their
records even after they've left office," Womack said. 
Under Bush's executive order, people seeking a former president's records
must present "a demonstrated, specific need." It also requires the national
archivist and the sitting president and his predecessor, or a
representative, to review requests. A sitting president could block the
release of a predecessor's papers even if the predecessor wanted to make the
records public. 
The lawsuit comes one day after a dispute over records from Bush's tenure as
Texas governor heated up. On Tuesday, the Texas State Library and Archives
asked Attorney General John Cornyn for a clarification. Bush's records have
been deposited in the Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University,
which Bush requested and which state law allows. The state's archivist has
argued that Texas should retain title to the records and should be permitted
to catalog and copy them. 
"Do these cease becoming state records?" asked state archivist Chris
LaPlante. "If so, what are they? Are they personal records? We have been
negotiating with the National Archives and Records Administration, the
current governor's office and President Bush's legal representative, to try
to come up with an understanding about how these records are to be managed
and accessed." 
Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University scholar studying the Bush White
House, said concern about Bush's policy on presidential records is strong. 
"Presidential libraries are not monuments," she said. "They are there to
provide information about how decisions were made. If people don't think the
records reflect that, it will be detrimental to the reputation for
completeness that presidential libraries have." 
_____________________________________________
Edward Seidenberg, Assistant State Librarian
edw@tsl.state.tx.us (512) 463-5459; fax 463-5436
Texas State Library, Box 12927, Austin, TX 78711-2927

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