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(FWD) NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #3, January 25, 2002



Again, apologies for the formatting--on a borrowed machine right now and a gunky mouse isn't its only problem...!  Holly

> NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #3, January 25, 2002
> by Bruce Craig <rbcraig@nccph.org
> National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History (NCCPH)
> *****************
>
> 1.  Congress Returns to Face Election Year Agenda
> 2.  Smithsonian Regents Hold First Meeting of the New Year
> 3.  2nd Notice: NCC Action Item: Executive Order Nullification Legislation
> 4.  Legislation Introduced: Veterans Database; McLoughlin House NHS
> 5.  American Council of Trustees and Alumni Report Draws Fire: Lieberman
> Distances himself From Report
> 6.  News Bits and Bytes: Save America's Treasures Posting; NARA TO Release
> Census Data; Summer Seminar; New NPS Deputy Director; New Webpages of Interest
> 7.  Articles of Interest: End of the e-book?
>
> 1.  CONGRESS RETURNS TO FACE ELECTION YEAR AGENDA
> On January 23, 2002 Congress returned to town, largely united over the
> President's handling of the war against terrorism, but sharply divided over
> his domestic policy initiatives. Partisan divisions will probably become
> more evident as Congress begins to address FY 2003 appropriation proposals
> that soon will be dropped in Congress's lap.
>
> On February 4, President Bush will set the tone and chart a course for the
> new fiscal year when he delivers his annual State of the Union address.
> Shortly thereafter, he will submit his budget proposals for various federal
> departments and agencies.
>
> Over the past weeks and months, federal departments, their agencies and
> bureaus such as the Department of Education, National Park Service,
> National Archives and Records Administration, and the National Endowment
> for the Humanities, have been working with the White House and the Office
> of Management and Budget (OMB) to formulate the President's FY 2003 budget
> proposal.  In formulating their annual budgets, some agencies were directed
> to start with last year's spending proposals and then execute cuts of 5
> -10%. Thus far, word from Hill insiders is that in FY 2003, the President's
> plan will be unusually tight in most spending areas (the war against
> terrorism and national defense being the exceptions) and Congress very
> likely will have to intervene to prop up threatened domestic programs.
>
> There have been a few hints and a number of calculated press leaks that
> provide a glimpse of what the President's budget will look like. Over the
> Martin Luther King holiday, for example, the Bush Administration announced
> that it would be advancing proposals to increase spending for the
> Historically Black Colleges. And in a very public display of opposition to
> the contemplated White House priorities and budget cuts, the Smithsonian,
> with the help of its employees, friends in the media, and members of
> Congress thus far appear to have successfully fought off an attempt to
> effectuate a transfer of some $35 million of Smithsonian research funds and
> programs to the National Science Foundation (See "The Smithsonian: Two News
> Updates," in NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #2, January 17, 2002).
>
> During the State of the Union, Hill watchers will be looking for clues
> relating to the President's approach to dealing with a divided Congress.
> The central question is whether he will pursue a cooperative or
> confrontational approach. Bush enjoys strong public support and hence he
> holds considerable clout with members of Congress, but since the Senate is
> in Democratic control and the GOP majority in the House is so slim, the
> President will have to be willing to cut deals in order to get his major
> initiatives passed.
>
> 2. SMITHSONIAN REGENTS HOLD FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW YEAR
> On January 22, 2002, after the first meeting of the new year for the
> Smithsonian Board of Regents, the museum's governing Board, Smithsonian
> Institution Secretary Lawrence Small met with a handful of reporters to
> brief them on what transpired during the Regents meeting.  He reported that
> as a consequence of dropping attendance (40-45% over the previous year),
> less spending at museum shops and concessions (though auditor's reports are
> not complete, the Smithsonian is bracing for $5 million less in business
> revenue in FY 2001) there is an issue "of sizing the Smithsonian to meet
> the needs of the public in the context of federal budget restraints."
> During the meeting, neither Small nor the Regents formulated a plan to deal
> with the anticipated shortfall.
>
> Small reported on the "progress being made" on the General Motors (GM) Hall
> of Transportation project, the Patent Office renovation, and on plans for
> the recently established African American Museum Commission (see "National
> Museum of African American History and Culture Commission Signed Into Law,"
> NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #2, January 17, 2002). When asked by a
> reporter about the Board's response to the recent letter from scholars
> calling for Small's dismissal largely owing to concerns over increasing
> donor influence on projects (see "Group Urges SI Regents to Fire Secretary
> Small," Ibid.) Small stated, "The Board is comfortable that all these
> situations involving donors are in accordance with guidelines that have
> been in place since the mid-90s." He stated that periodic concern by the
> press and others over how the Smithsonian is operating in fiscally
> challenging times is due to the "fast pace of these major projects and
> renovations" which are being made possible by increased private support for
> these projects.
>
> 3.  2nd NOTICE -- NCC ACTION ITEM: EXECUTIVE ORDER NULLIFICATION LEGISLATION
> A reprinting of this important message posted last week. If you haven't
> taken action, please do so today.
>
> In addition to the lawsuit filed by the Public Citizen that challenges
> provisions of President Bush's recent Executive Order 13233 relating to
> implementation of the Presidential Records Act (see "Lawsuit Challenges
> Bush Presidential Records Executive Order" in "NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol.
> 7, #48, November 29, 2001), Congress now is initiating its own action to
> nullify the executive order.
>
> Last November, the House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
> Management and Intergovernmental Relations conducted an oversight hearing
> entitled, The Implementation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (see
> "Reagan Papers/New Executive Order - Topics of Congressional Hearing" in
> NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 7, #46, November 9, 2001). During the hearing
> it became apparent that both Republicans and Democrats were critical of the
> presidential order.  In December, a number of interested parties met with
> minority Democratic Committee staff to discuss possible legislation that
> would overturn the E.O.  Given the strong bi-partisan concern over E.O.
> 13233 and its draconian effects, it seemed plausible that a bi-partisan
> legislative effort could be successful.
>
> After consultation with majority staff, it was agreed to postpone
> introduction of legislation until the full Committee on Government Reform
> holds a hearing on the issue.  That hearing - designed to give the issue
> more visibility and prominence - is expected to take place in the near
> future.  To this end, the two key legislative players, Committee Chair Dan
> Burton (R-IN) and ranking Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) have agreed that
> they will introduce legislation - the Access to Presidential Records Act -
> at the hearing or shortly thereafter.  The legislation will be simple and
> straightforward and will state that President Bush's Executive Order 13233
> shall have no force or effect.
>
> With Congress now swinging into action, YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!  It is NOW
> time for the historical and archival community to TAKE ACTION.  Please
> contact your members of Congress and encourage them to be "original
> cosponsors" of the Burton/Waxman legislation.  A simple phone call to the
> member of the House of Representatives that represents you will do: the
> Capitol switchboard telephone number is (202) 224-3121. The message you
> need to communicate is simple: Request that your Representative become an
> original co-sponsor of Congressman Dan Burton and Henry Waxman's "Access to
> Presidential Records Act."  Request that your Representative write you a
> letter in response to your request.  Our goal is to see the legislation
> introduced with well over 100 House members as co-sponsors - the higher the
> number, the stronger the message will be to the Bush Administration. PLEASE
> TAKE ACTION TODAY!
>
> 4.  LEGISLATION INTRODUCED: VETERANS DATABASE AND MCLOUGHLIN HOUSE NHS
> National War Permanent Tribute Historical Database Act: Representative
> David Dreier (R-CA) has introduced legislation (H.R. 2748) to authorize the
> establishment of a national database for the purpose of identifying,
> locating, and cataloging the many memorials and permanent tributes to
> America's veterans. The bill takes into account that there are perhaps
> thousands of public memorials and tributes in communities throughout the
> country but they have never been comprehensively located, identified, or
> cataloged. The legislation authorizes $3.2 million to a tax-exempt
> nonprofit corporation known as RVETS ("Remembering Veterans Who Earned
> Their Stripes") which would assemble the database on no fewer than 1,000
> such tributes.  Public access to the database would be provided through the
> Department of Veterans Affairs Internet site. The legislation was referred
> to the House Resources Committee; the Subcommittee on National Parks,
> Recreation and Public Lands held a hearing on the measure on December 13,
> 2001.
>
> McLoughlin House National Historic Site Act: Representative Darlene Hooley
> (D-OR) has introduced legislation (H.R. 3425) to authorize the Secretary of
> the Interior to acquire "from willing sellers only, by donation, purchase
> with donated funds or appropriated funds" the McLoughlin House National
> Historic Site in Oregon City, Oregon, and administer it as a unit of the
> National Park System. At present, the NPS has a cooperative agreement with
> the McLoughlin House Memorial Association that currently owns and operates
> the house. The structure is closely associated with John McLoughlin, known
> as the "Father or Oregon," who directed a profitable fur trade business for
> the Hudson's Bay Company out of Fort Vancouver. The bill has been referred
> to the House Resources Committee; no hearings on the measure have been
> scheduled.
>
> 5.  AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI REPORT DRAWS FIRE: LIEBERMAN
> DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM REPORT
> Back in November 2001, two months to the day after the September 11
> terrorist attacks, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) an
> organization founded by Lynne V. Cheney, the former chair of the National
> Endowment for the Humanities and the wife of the Vice-President, issued a
> report "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America
> and What Can Be Done About It." The 38-page report listed the names of
> several academics along with over 100 statements they made in public forums
> or in classes that "ranged from moral equivocation to explicit
> condemnations of America" with respect to the Administration's handling of
> the war on terrorism.  According to the report, "the message of much of
> academe was clear BLAME AMERICA FIRST."
>
> Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CONN), who has strong ties to ACTA, has
> distanced himself from the report.  In a recent a letter to the Council, he
> characterized the report as "unfair and inconsistent or an organization
> devoted to promoting academic freedom."  The study has been criticized in
> the press not only as an "attack on academic freedom" but for its shoddy
> research and its unrepresentative portrayal of the discussions and
> responses to the 9-11 attacks that actually took place on the nation's
> college and university campuses.
>
> The report may be accessed by clicking on the "publications" then "reports"
> tabs on the ACTA homepage at: http://www.goacta.org
>
> 6.  NEWS BITS AND BYTES:
> Item #1- Save America's Treasures Guideline Posting:  For the last three
> years, Save America's Treasures (SAT) grants have provided special federal
> funds to support projects that preserve important American treasures
> including high profile projects, such as the Star Spangled Banner
> restoration, as well as lower profile projects, such as grants to libraries
> for preservation of collections of special significance. This year, First
> Lady Laura Bush became quite interested in the program and as a result, the
> Bush Administration supported inclusion of $30 million for continuation of
> the project in FY-02.
>
>  From the beginning, SAT has been administered by the National Park Service
> (NPS), a unit of the Department of  Interior.  The SAT guidelines were
> placed on the NPS webpage but in December, when a federal judge ordered the
> NPS and certain other Department of Interior webpages shut down in
> connection with the agency's management of Indian Trust Funds, the
> guidelines became temporarily inaccessible.  Now, however, the guidelines
> for the 2002 competition, for which proposals are due in April, can be
> found at <http://www.arts.endow.gov/partner/SAT2002B.html>, the web site of
> the National Endowment for the Arts, a key partner with the park service in
> managing the SAT competition.   For information and questions about the
> program, contact the NPS at 202/343-9570 or Michael McLaughlin, the NEA
> employee responsible for partnership on the SAT, at 202/872-5457.
>
> Item #2 - NARA to Release Census Data:  On April 1, 2002 the National
> Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will release the 1930 Federal
> population census. At that time, microfilmed copies of the 15th Federal
> census mandated by the U.S. Constitution will be available for at the
> National Archives Building in Washington, DC, at 13 of the National
> Archives regional facilities across the nation, and through the National
> Archives rental program.
>
> The 1930 census consists of 2,667 rolls of population schedules and 1,587
> rolls of Soundex indexes for 12 southern states, totaling 4,254 rolls. The
> census provides a wealth of socio-economic information such as the
> following: names of all persons living in each home; relationship of each
> person to the head of household; whether the home is owned or rented; value
> of the home; if the family owns a radio; if they own a farm; whether they
> attended school or college; if they can read or write; place of birth;
> citizenship status; and occupation.  For a complete listing of National
> Archives regional facilities and opening times, check the NARA web site at:
> http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/genindex.html For more information on the
> 1930 census, see
> www.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html/
>
> Item #3 Summer Seminar: The Supreme Court Historical Society has announced
> the fourth annual seminar for college teachers and advanced doctoral
> students, a program associated with the Institute for Constitutional
> Studies. This year the topic for discussion will be "Federalism." The
> theory and  practice of federalism will be used as a template for
> historical analysis from the beginnings of the United States to the recent
> past. Analyzing both dimensions of American constitutional history--how
> federalism shaped political thought, law and public policy, how changes in
> political thought, law and public policy reshaped federalism--is the main
> task of this seminar.  The seminar will meet in Washington, D.C., for three
> weeks, June 9-28, 2002,  and daily sessions will be held at Opperman House,
> the headquarters building  of the Supreme Court Historical Society, near
> the Supreme Court and the  Library of Congress.  Participants may be housed
> in nearby university  residence halls or make other arrangements.
> Enrollment will be limited to fifteen participants, each of whom will be
> awarded a stipend adequate to cover costs of travel, room, and board.
> Application deadline is 15 March 2002. For further information, contact
> Maeva Marcus by phone, 202-502-1040, or by  e-mail at DocHistSC@aol.com, or
> Melvin Urofsky by phone, 804-828-4387, or by e-mail at murofsky@vcu.edu.
>
> Item #4 - New NPS Deputy Director: On January 27, 2002,  A. Durand "Randy"
> Jones will enter in on duty as the new deputy director of the National Park
> Service (NPS).  Jones replaces Denis P. Galvin who retired in early January
> after 38 years of service to the NPS.  Jones has over 30 years experience
> in a variety of leadership positions in parks, regional offices, and
> Washington D.C.  Most recently, he was superintendent of Rocky Mountain
> National Park. Jones's appointment is favorably looked upon by the
> historical community.  Not only does he possess a bachelors degree in
> history from the University of South Florida (1971), but he is familiar
> with the NPS's historical resources having served as superintendent of
> Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park where he negotiated a major
> donation of land and easements from the Johnson family. Jones stated he is
> especially interested in "developing workable strategies for managing the
> national parks an many programs, such as the National Register of Historic
> Places."
>
> Item #5 - New Web pages of Interest: Over the last couple of weeks several
> websites of interest have come to our attention:
> "September 11 Terrorist Attacks" - To help teachers (primarily high school
> teachers) raise awareness of their students to the issues surrounding the
> September 11 terrorist attacks, the Choices for the 21st Century Project at
> Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies has posted
> curricular resources at: http://www.choices.edu/Sept11.top.html
>
> "Today in History,"is  sponsored by the Library of Congress and features a
> different person or event in history each day;
> see:  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
>
> "We the People... The Citizen & the Constitution" a Department of Education
> sponsored web site seeks to help elementary and secondary school students
> understand the history and principles of
> our constitutional government.  The program focuses on the U.S.
> Constitution & Bill of Rights; see http://www.civiced.org/wethepeople.html
>
> 7.  ARTICLES OF INTEREST:
> On a trial basis we are launching a new section in the NCC UPDATE.  It is
> designed to give readers direct access via hyper-link to articles in the
> nation's popular and academic press in their entirety that may be of
> interest to the historical and archival community.  Please share your
> suggestions and thoughts on this section with the editor and don't hesitate
> to forward links to articles you think important.
>
> **THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR January 23, 2002.
> "Book lovers fail to click with e-pages" brings to light recent
> developments raising questions about the future of e-publishing.
> Apparently, several major booksellers have shelved the idea of selling
> online editions. http//www.csmonitor.com/2002/0123/p01s03-woeu.html
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > NCC invites you to redistribute the NCC Washington Updates.  A complete
> backfile of these reports is maintained by H-Net on the NCC's web page at
> <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~ncc>.
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