Does anyone else remember Barack Obama’s “Five Day Rule” which purported to shine more sunlight on the legislative process and give voters time to read and comment on bills? For a refresher course, the information is still available at his web site.
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
And yet, as Politico points out today, that promise barely lasted out the first week of the new administration.
Obama appears poised to break his campaign pledge to give the public five days to review a bill before he signs it.
Obama scheduled a bill signing for 4:35 p.m. Wednesday, even though the House has yet to vote on the legislation expanding a children’s health insurance program. The legislation is expected to win final approval only hours before the president will make it law.
Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act only two days after it received final passage last week, and it wasn’t posted on the White House website until after it became law.
This was one of the more attractive promises from the Obama campaign. A great idea which would provide voters, journalists and bloggers a chance to look over the final version of bills and express their views before they became law. Sunlight was a great idea. Apparently it was also an idea before its time, since it has gone under the bus.
If we were talking about the stimulus bill (assuming it became functional) I could see calling it an “emergency bill” given our current situation. But SCHIP? The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act? (Which has been running around the Hill for ages now.) If these qualify as “emergency bills” then so does our petition for the recognition of National Pie Week.
As Politico notes, Politifact.com is keeping track of the new President’s promises and which ones are kept or broken. So far the only absolutely “broken” is the five day rule. Not that bad for two weeks in office I suppose.