Presidential Papers

This Seattle Times editorial discusses a federal bill to overturn a Bush administration executive order allowing the President to withhold presidential papers from the public. The bill would overturn the executive order provision empowering relatives of the President to decide whether to allow the release of presidential papers. A Republican senator is thought to be blocking the bill.

Open government is a non-partisan issue. In the presidential papers story, the culprit appears to be a Republican. In Washington state there are plenty of Democrat culprits. And some Republicans. And some more Democrats. And so it goes.