Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009
Floor Speech
PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT AMENDMENTS OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - January 07, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The new chairman and I both are assuming these positions after a long period of time of serving in lesser positions on Government Reform, and we come to it, I think, equally with the same vigor, with a vigor to make this committee a bipartisan committee, a committee that works openly between the majority and minority for the purpose of making sure that government works openly for the people who we serve.
I want to thank the chairman today because as we bring three votes from our committee, each of these was shared with the other in consultation, each of them was agreed were necessary and could be moved in a timely fashion today. Each of them will be presented to our conferences as noncontroversial, and in fact, ones that should pass unanimously or near unanimously. This is a great start.
I'm particularly pleased with the chairman and myself to be able to offer the first pieces of legislation of the 111th Congress because I expect that this committee will be the most productive committee of the Congress. It is the committee that has the greatest responsibility, as President-elect Obama has said, to make government accountable. We are that committee.
I look forward to it. As the chairman said, this piece of legislation does restore a balance. It is not a balance that's without controversy, but it is a balance that I believe is appropriate.
Additionally, to what is in the language of the bill, which the chairman did a good job of explaining, there is, in fact, a final holdback which is any President asserting some Presidential secret or particular current damage to the government would be able to overcome this legislation, but it will be the burden of the current President, and as the chairman said, the burden of the previous President to make a case for why records should not be made public rather than the other way around.
I look forward to a floor vote on this on a bipartisan basis and urge passage of this bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source