Court Won't Order Cheney Papers Released

[zimv20]

link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20040624/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_cheney)


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration won't have to reveal secret details of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force before the election, after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a lower court should spend more time sorting out the White House's privacy claim.

In a 7-2 decision, justices said the lower court should consider whether a federal open government law could be used to get task force documents. Even if that court rules against the administration, appeals would tie up the case well past November.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the federal district court judge who ordered records opened to the public had issued too broad a release of documents, without giving appropriate deference to the White House.

The president is not above the law, Kennedy wrote, but there is a "paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation that might distract it from the energetic performance of its constitutional duties."

(more)


looks like cheney got away with it. score one against open gov't. and the first time the dems try this, the GOP is going to scream bloody murder.

[mactastic]

What's with SCOTUS and the crappy decisions this week? Oh well, wait till the rulings in Rumsfeld v Padilla and Hamdi v Rumsfeld come down. Also Rasul v Bush and Al Odah v U.S.

[wwworry]

So we will never know the origin of the US Enronegy policy. ;)

[mactastic]

So we will never know the origin of the US Enronegy policy. ;)

Oh we will. But by the time we find out there will be nothing we can do to hold this president accountable for his actions. Unless by some weird scenario Bush is re-elected but the Dems take over the House of Reps.

[IJ Reilly]

Oh we will. But by the time we find out there will be nothing we can do to hold this president accountable for his actions. Unless by some weird scenario Bush is re-elected but the Dems take over the House of Reps.

I think we already do know. If the oil industry's fingerprints weren't all over these policies, then the White House wouldn't have gone to the Supreme Court to avoid disclosing who was involved with formulating them. In fact, they'd have been anxious to show us how even-handed they'd been.

[Chip NoVaMac]

I am not surprised. The SCOTUS has been more fickle than <choose your own example :) >. At times they are more liberal than most any other court, and other times striking at the heart of the freedoms we enjoy as a nation.

They first had a chance at righting the way the president is elected back in 2000. And now we have this. This was not a matter of National Security, but energy and economic policy. All documents involved in these closed door meetings should be made public.

I hate to bring partisan politics into this, but if Clinton had tried to do the same thing Republicans would be all over Clinton and Gore, like white on rice.

But then again Clinton and Gore did not have business interests with Big Oil like Bush and Cheney have had.

Wake up American voters. Your interests are being sold to the highest corporate bidder.

[Voltron]

Actual experts who knows about such things that would be required to be known for any kind of energy policy happens to work in the energy industry, like duh. Environmentalists, for example, only know what they want they aren't actually experts in the field at making energy or drilling for oil thus are not qualified to make any recommendations for any kind of energy policy.

Who do you think helped make energy policy a bunch of temporary laborers? Of course they went to the experts they would've been stupid not to.

[wwworry]

I'm an oil-man expert. You should let us drill for more oil where ever we want. Give us bigger subsidies. Let us pollute more. We experts need more money.

[Voltron]

I'm an oil-man expert. You should let us drill for more oil where ever we want. Give us bigger subsidies. Let us pollute more. We experts need more money.
They would also be conscious of considerations such as bad press or bad pr should they mess up and have an accident. Therefore they would put on a priority on how to do it safely for fear the Democrats will use such accidents against them.

[Neserk]

The SCOTUS has been more fickle than a woman going through her period.
.

Women? Fickle during their periods??? Never heard that before (or witnessed it).

Careful with your stereotyping.

[Chip NoVaMac]

[QUOTE=Neserk

Careful with your stereotyping.[/QUOTE]

Sorry no offense intended. My apologies.

Did a minor edit of that post. :)

[zimv20]

link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4033-2004Jun24?language=printer)


Unstable Rules

Friday, June 25, 2004; Page A28

WHEN HILLARY Clinton wanted to keep secret the proceedings of her health care task force in 1993, the courts drew an important legal line. If people who were not government employees were effectively acting as members of the group, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrote, federal law required certain disclosures. What's more, groups suing the task force to get access to its proceedings were entitled to discovery to find out what role those outside figures were actually playing. Yesterday the Supreme Court decided the case of Vice President Cheney's energy policy task force -- a case most famous for Justice Antonin Scalia's duck hunt but one that deals with the same law as the health care task force litigation a decade ago. The court said, in essence, that the White House is owed more deference than the D.C. Circuit showed it in either case; without quite saying so, it seemed to instruct the lower court to review its precedent.

The decision is a partial win for Mr. Cheney, who gets to keep the task force's records secret while litigation continues. But it also casts the courts in an odd light, for the rules appear to be suddenly different for the Bush administration than they were for its predecessor.

The Clinton administration was subjected in a range of cases to intrusive discovery that, it frequently complained, burdened executive confidences. The Supreme Court okayed personal sexual harassment litigation against the president with blithe disregard for its potential impact on the presidency. Now, by contrast, the high court bends over backward to emphasize, even at the risk of tension with its own precedents, the president's special needs in fighting off lawsuits. In this case, it goes so far as to allow an extraordinary appeal procedure to make sure those needs get accommodated. Ms. Clinton is entitled to wonder why the rules seem so unstable.

There are procedural differences between the cases that can at least partly explain the difference in outcome. Most notably, the Supreme Court was never asked to review the health care case, so this is really its first look at the principle the D.C. Circuit articulated then. And judges may feel uncomfortable now with the degree to which they encumbered President Bill Clinton's administration. Yet it is critical that the courts, having articulated rules for one administration, follow those rules for others. Few things can more damage public confidence in apolitical courts than if the principles that guide relations between the presidency and judiciary seem to shift based on the solicitude of judges for the incumbent administration.

[Neserk]

[QUOTE=Neserk

Careful with your stereotyping.

Sorry no offense intended. My apologies.

Did a minor edit of that post. :)[/QUOTE]


Appreciate it. The only time I'm fickle is when I've had too much caffeine or sugar :p