Why We Need the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007

As part of the Democrats' Accountability Agenda, the House is now debating the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007:

Overturning the Bush Executive Order. Under the Presidential Records Act, presidential records are supposed to be released to historians and the public 12 years after the end of a presidential administration. In November 2001, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13233 which overturned an executive order issued by President Reagan and gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely. The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 would nullify the Bush executive order and establish procedures to ensure the timely release of presidential records.

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Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman spoke on the floor moments ago on the importance of these amendments:

"There are those who would like to rewrite history, and to the extent we can keep that from happening, I think this bill goes a long way."

We covered the hearing on this bill in the Oversight Committee, here Rep. Lacy Clay, who presided over the hearing as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, asked historians about their feelings on President Bush's executive order and the ramifications for the future:

"It's amazing the way that these men [in the Nixon Administration] would speak, the things they would say about all sorts of people, about foreign countries, about what they knew as to the limits of what they were doing, in relation, for example, to Vietnam. I think there are such lessons to be seen from that in relation to the current war in Iraq."