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(FWD) NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #4, January 31, 2002
NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #4, January 31,2002
by Bruce Craig <rbcraig@nccph.org
National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History (NCCPH)
*****************
1. Congress Verses the White House: Another Chapter in the Increasingly
Polarized Debate Over Government Information Policy
2. NCC ACTION ITEM: New York Former Mayor Giuliani's Public Papers in
Access Limbo: Letters to Mayor Urgently Needed
3. New NEA Chair Dead at 69
4 . News Bits and Bytes: Presidential Records Lawsuit Update; Update on
ACTA Report; Smithsonian Launches Civil War Web Site; Commercial Alert
Posting of Letter to Smithsonian Regents
5. Articles of Interest: "Premature Reports of CLIO's Death"; "Taking a
Page Out of Another's Book: New Rules for Writers in the Internet Age?"
1. CONGRESS VERSES THE WHITE HOUSE: ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE INCREASINGLY
POLARIZED DEBATE OVER GOVERNMENT INFORMATION POLICY
Every president grapples with the proper boundary of Congressional
oversight over Executive Department activities. In this respect, President
Bush's Administration is not particularly unique. What is different,
however, are the claims being advanced by the White House seeking to
"protect the privilege of the president" in the development of public
policy and in determining how and when such records relating to those
policies should be released to the public. The recent effort to create new
procedures over the records of past presidents subject to the Presidential
Records Act is but one example. In this regard, what White House spokesman
Ari Fleischer has characterized as "the decline of the power of the
presidency that has taken place in the last 35 years" is now being
aggressively challenged on several fronts.
First, with the collapse of the Enron corporation, Congressional
investigators want Vice-President Richard Cheney to turn over the records
of his energy task force which contributed to the formulation of the
Administration's energy policy last year. What is already known is that
Enron and its corporate executives made substantial contributions to the
Republican presidential campaign and that after the election, Cheney met
with corporate officials at least six times. Furthermore, it is apparent
that two of the three recommendations advanced by the executives were
integrated into the Administration's national energy policy. Congressional
oversight committees now want to know more about the development of that
policy.
In an effort to calm Congressional concerns, the Vice-President's office
has released to investigators "numerous financial and other records," but
not everything desired by Congress, such as notes and minutes of those
closed-door policy-making meetings. Cheney maintains that he will not turn
over to Congress "a listing of everybody I meet with, of everything that
was discussed, any advice that was received, notes and minutes of those
meetings" as it would "put a chill over the ability of the President and
Vice-President to receive unvarnished advice." According to Andrew Card,
White House Chief of Staff, the Administration's ability to have
confidential talks with advisers will be "fiercely guarded"-- a position
consistent with recent executive orders as well as White House spokesman
Ari Fleischer's statement about the Administration's intent to fight
efforts designed to stem presidential power.
In an action that now pits Congress against the White House, on January 30,
the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigating arm of Congress,
announced that it will challenge the Administration's position (for the GAO
statement and rationale for pursuing the Energy Task Force records, see
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/01/gao013002.html). Though last August
the agency backed off from a similar demand for Executive Department
documents, David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States and
Director of the GAO, announced his agency's intent to ask a federal judge
to order Cheney to turn over the documents sought by Congress. The White
House maintains that the agency has "exceeded its authority." According to
Cheney, "I'm a constitutional officer, and the authority of the GAO does
not extend in that case to my office." Unless a compromise agreement is
negotiated between the GAO and the White House, it will probably be up to
the courts to decide the validity of the Administration's position.
Another related development: In the first of several courtroom challenges
focusing on "privileged documents" (see also "Lawsuit Challenges Bush
Presidential Records Executive Order," NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 7, #48,
November 29, 2001 and related story below), the White House has just lost a
key battle. According to "Secrecy News," the newsletter of the Federation
of American Scientist's "Project on Government Secrecy," (see Volume 2002,
Issue No. 10; January 29, 2002) a federal court has upheld the use of an
unusual statutory mechanism called the Seven Member Rule to compel federal
agencies to disclose certain types of information to Congress.
The newsletter states: "Last year, sixteen members of the House Government
Reform Committee sued the Bush Administration for access to census data
that the Administration did not want to release. The lawsuit cited the
Seven Member Rule, which is a 1928 statutory provision dictating that an
agency must release information if it is requested by seven members of the
House Government Reform Committee (or five members of the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee) and concerns a matter under the Committee's
jurisdiction. This provision had never before been tested in court."
In the January 18, 2001 landmark decision, the Court found the rule valid
and applicable, and ordered that the requested data to be disclosed. Rep.
Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the Committee, hailed the
Court's decision. Waxman told the New York Times, that the Seven Member
Rule could become "an important tool for the public's right to know."
For the Court's ruling and related documentation tap
into: http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_other/other_census.htm.
See also, "Judge Allows Unusual Bid to Get Data from Census" by David E.
Rosenbaum in the January 26 New York Times at:<
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/26/politics/26ACCE.html>.
2. NCC ACTION ITEM: NEW YORK FORMER MAYOR GIULIANI'S PUBLIC PAPERS IN
ACCESS LIMBO; LETTERS TO THE MAYOR URGENTLY NEEDED
Mike Wallace, Director of the Gotham Center for New York City History,
reports that former Mayor Giuliani, in what to many archivists seems "an
unprecedented and ill-advised action," has taken personal control of his
official city papers. Under a contract written in the last days of his
Administration, Giuliani worked out a deal with the New York City's records
commissioner to move his papers to a private storage facility in
Queens. Giuliani's supporters maintain this is an effort to help the city
by financing and thus speeding up the archiving process. Not
coincidentally, it will help Mr. Giuliani maintain control of his image and
get quick access to material he needs to fulfill a $3 million book contract
to write about his days as the city's mayor.
Under the terms of the agreement, Giuliani will have the right to block
public access to any papers in which he deems he has a private interest,
unless Mayor Bloomberg renegotiates the agreement. Wallace and others have
launched a petition drive targeted to Mayor Bloomberg urging the city
government "to arrange for the immediate return of all public documents to
public custody."
NCC ACTION ITEM: Concerned individuals and organizations are urged to
write: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, City Hall, New York, N.Y. 10007.
For additional information on this issue, see David Herszenhorn,
"Giuliani's Papers Go to Private Group, Not City," the New York Times,
January 25, 2002; Wayne Barrett, "Hijacking History Rudy Heists City
Archives to Shape His Own Legend," Village Voice, January 23 - 29, 2002,
and JoAnne Wasserman, "Mike Troubled by Rudy Locking Up His Papers," New
York Daily News, January 25, 2002.
3. NEW NEA CHAIR DEAD AT 69
Michael P. Hammond (69), the former Dean of Rice University's Shepherd
School of Music, who President Bush named as Chairman of the National
Endowment for the Arts on September 19, 2001, died of natural causes at his
home in Washington D.C. Hammond had been on the job for just over a week.
Details relating to his death are sketchy. Apparently, Hammond went home
early on Monday having experienced flulike symptoms. When he did not
arrive at work the next day, staff members tried to reach him. He was
found dead at his home.
Bruce Cole, the new Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities
stated, "Michael Hammond and I had a good talk about our shared scholarly
interests and were looking forward to working together. His death is a
loss to the cultural community."
NEA Senior Deputy Eileen Mason will serve as the agency's interim chief
until a new Chair is named by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
4. NEWS BITS AND BYTES:
Item #1: Presidential Records Lawsuit Update: As has been previously
reported in this newsletter (see "Lawsuit Challenges Bush Presidential
Records Executive Order," NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, November 29, 2001), on
November 28, 2001 Public Citizen (a Washington D.C. based nonprofit
consumer advocacy organization) filed suit in a federal court in
Washington, D.C. on behalf of the American Historical Association, the
Organization of American Historians, the National Security Archive, the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Public Citizen, and eminent
presidential historians Hugh Graham and Stanley Kutler, to overturn an
executive order issued by President Bush (E.O. 13233) that limits access to
the records of former presidents. In their filing, the plaintiffs maintain
that the executive order violates the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which
opens most presidential records to public access 12 years after a president
leaves office.
We have now been informed that having reviewed the plaintiff's brief, the
government will be filing a "motion to dismiss" on February 8,
2002. Public Citizen intends to simultaneously file its response, a
"motion for summary judgement." Stay tuned as the case works its way
through the court system!
Item #2 - Update on ACTA Report: In last week's NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE (see
"American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) Report Draws Fire," NCC
WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 8, #3, January 25, 2002) we reported on a study
published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni criticizing many
academics for a "blame American first" response to the attacks of September
11. Many of those named in the ACTA report said that their comments had
been taken out of context, and some criticized the group for engaging in
McCarthy-style intimidation. In recent advertisement in "The Nation,"
Martin J. Sherwin, a professor of English and American history at Tufts
University invited faculty members to come forward themselves and let ACTA
know of statements that might offend its members. The magazine created a
place on its Website for others to come forward with confessions, and many
academics have responded. The text of Mr. Sherwin's advertisement and
responses from readers may be found on the magazine's Website,
<http://www.thenation.com/>.
Item #3 - Smithsonian Launches Civil War Web Site: The Smithsonian
Institution has launched a new website called CivilWar@Smithsonian that
features more than 250 images taken from uniforms, paintings, photographs
and other artifacts. According to Marc Pachter, acting director of the
National Museum of American History, "the Website will contain links to
other Civil War era sites and organizations and will grow to become the
ultimate Civil War visual resource on the World Wide Web." To access the
website, tap into: <http://www.civilwar.si.edu>.
Item #4 - In a recent NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE ("The Smithsonian: Two Updates"
Vol. 8 #2, January 17, 2002) we reported on a letter sent by Commercial
Alert cosigned by a coalition of 170 scholars and activists to the
Smithsonian Institution's governing Board of Regents requesting that they
protect the Smithsonian from commercialism, and fire Secretary Lawrence
Small for commercializing the Institution. The complete text of that
letter is now available at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/smithsonian/commercialism.html>.
Additional background materials on what is termed "commercialism at the
Smithsonian" are available at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/smithsonian/index.html>.
5. ARTICLES OF INTEREST:
This week's first thought-provoking article of interest is from the on-line
journal, Common-Place: "The Ends of History: Who Killed Clio" by Jeffrey N.
Wasserstrom of Indiana University;
<http://www.common-place.org/vol-02/no-02/wasserstrom/>.
With two best-selling historians being accused of plagiarism, Christian
Science Monitor writer Samar Farah asks, "Are there new rules for writers
in the Internet age?";
<http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0131/p11s02-idgn.html>.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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