economic stimulus

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President Honors Pledge to Post Bills Before Signing

by Jim Harper on February 14, 2009 · 15 comments

. . . or does he?

Friday afternoon, the White House blog announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was posted online for public comment. This is good evidence that the President intends to honor his campaign promise to post legislation online and take public comment for five days before signing it.

But it’s not great evidence of that.

The Whitehouse.gov post went up at 2:05 pm, but the House didn’t vote until 2:24 pm and the Senate voted at 05:29 pm. (Click on the “votes” to see how your representatives did.) As of Saturday afternoon, the Thomas legislative tracking system doesn’t indicate that the bill has been presented to the President yet. And news reports indicate that the President will sign the bill on Monday, three days after it was “pre-“posted.

Regular order, Mr. President. When a bill is presented to you, post it online (at a consistent place on your Web site, not just at ad hoc URLs as you’ve done up to now). Then wait five days, reviewing the comments of the public as you promised to do when you asked the public to elect you.

The steps the White House has taken toward implementing the President’s promise are good steps. (In this Cato daily podcast, I characterized the President’s record on transparency so far as “mixed.”) But the promise is not fulfilled until bills receive five days online airing after they have been presented.

Presentment is a distinct, constitutional step in the legislative process. Until every non-emergency bill is posted online for five days after presentment and before signing, President Obama will look like he’s being driven by events and maneuvered by his elders in Congress.

15 comments

Stop Hiding the Stimulus Bill

by Jim Harper on February 12, 2009 · 12 comments

Here’s Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation on the closed process being used to ram through the deficit-spending/economic stimulus bill:

[I]t is not just Republicans who are being denied access to the bill. Reporters, bloggers, and the general public are being denied an opportunity to review one of the most important pieces of legislation sent through Congress in a long time. Anyone who wants should express that, whatever the partisan reasons for denying access to the bill, the American people deserve a right to review this legislation. Slamming it through without letting anyone see, save for 7 or 8 congressmen and some staff, is not fair to the public or the legislative process. This is a dangerous practice that the Democrats ran against in 2006 and now, in the majority, are unfortunately using to block their opposition’s attacks. The majority Democrats should maintain their previous position on running the most open and honest government by allowing the public to review this legislation. Anything less is unacceptable.

12 comments