The Irony of President Obama's "Sunlight Before Signing"

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 9:45 AM

Byron York provides an interesting perspective on President Obama's election promise to provide "sunlight before signing" legislation in today's DC Examiner.

During the campaign, Obama promised:  

“No more secrecy. … when there's a bill that ends up on my desk as president, yo, the American voter, will have five days to look online and find out what it is before I sign it, so that you know what your government's doing.”

That commitment has since been massaged into applying only to non-emergency legislation. However, the president hasn't even kept that commitment, signing both the "Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" and the "S-CHIP reauthorization/expansion bill (which by the way broke another one of his campaign promises  - the promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000) shortly after they reached his desk, without allowing for public scrutiny.

The Administration stressed during the "stimulus" negotiations that this package would certainly meet the "emergency legislation" exemption, and proceeded to push for rapid passage of the package, only to then let it sit for a few days (although not the full five days) before signing it today.

From the Examiner:

He signs nonemergency legislation in the blink of an eye. And he lets emergency legislation sit for days before lifting his pen.

Obama’s delay in signing the stimulus is particularly ironic in light of the fact that Republicans had begged that the public be given more time to learn what was in the $787 billion bill — before it was passed.

No, no, the White House and Democrats said. This is emergency legislation, and it must be passed as soon as humanly possible. Democratic lawmakers worked round the clock to produce a bill — the final copy had handwritten revisions on it — that could be voted on Friday evening.

And then, when Senate Democrats knew they didn’t have the 60 votes necessary to move the legislation forward — the ailing Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy had gone to Florida, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown was at home attending a wake for his mother, who had died a few days earlier — Majority Leader Harry Reid took the extraordinary step of extending the vote for hours. The voting period, which normally lasts about 15 minutes, began at 5:30 p.m. Friday and ended only when Brown, his mother’s wake over, flew to Washington to cast his vote at almost 11. Then Brown immediately flew back to Ohio for his mother’s Saturday funeral.

It was a nearly unprecedented stretch of the rules. Republicans, knowing they didn’t have the votes to stop the bill and planning to spend the Presidents Day weekend in their home states, had agreed to Reid’s plan ahead of time. But why was there such a rush, if Obama had no plans to sign it for days?

Byron York draws the following conclusion:

This delay had nothing to do with sunlight — and everything to do with showmanship.

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