Appropriations Subcommittee* Votes To Defund Cheney's Office

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to cut off funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office in a continuing battle over whether he must comply with national security disclosure rules.

A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president's budget until Cheney's office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.

At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.

Cheney's office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch "agencies.""

Good. Now I hope the Senate as a whole adopts this. Cheney has consistently acted as though the other three branches of government don't matter. He needs to learn the error of his ways, and this looks like a good way to teach him. Naturally, I'd prefer that he get a lesson in the powers of the judicial branch, but this is a decent start.

***

UPDATE: As Jim Parish noted in comments, it was the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, not the full Appropriations Committee. I changed the title without doing the full cross out, UPDATE thing there, since I thought it would make the title much too long.

Comments

[Jim Parish]

A small correction: this wasn't the Appropriations Committee, but the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. Next step is the full committee. See here.

[cleek]

Now I hope the Senate as a whole adopts this.

best case, all Dems vote for this. but Lieberman won't, and none of the actual Republicans will either. that leaves who to break the tie ?

[Ugh]

This is dumb, if it actually passes Bush re-writes or withdraws the executive order. They should defund in all circumstances.

[hilzoy]

Jim P: Thanks; corrected.

[Muldoon]

The vote on this one won't fall along the lines of Dems v Repubs; it will be between folks with smarts and damn fools who choose to render themselves insignificant by giving away the powers assigned to them by the Constitution. This is a calculated power grab by Cheney, a turf war pure and simple.

[KCinDC]

Uh, Muldoon, how exactly do you think those two ways of dividing senators differ at the moment? Has there been any indication in the last six years of Republican senators who aren't "damn fools" in your formulation?

[KCinDC]

But maybe that was your point.

[Muldoon]

KcinDc -- Thank you for clarifying the point I was trying to make. How dumb must Republican legislators be to vote to make their jobs obsolete and then expect to continue to be employed?

[Hartmut]

There were Reichstag elections between 1933 and 1945. That the parliament was just "Germany's best paid male glee club" (singing the anthem on the first day and then adjourning until the next election) didn't matter. I don't see why obsolecence should stop congressbeings from being (re)elected (especially considering how much harm a bunch of ex-con(gress)men could cause, if released from DC ;-)).

[KCinDC]

Oh, they don't get released from DC, Harmut. When they're thrown out of Congress they stay here as lobbyists and get a massive pay increase.

[Hartmut]

The time spent in congress is obviously just the "galley years" that qualify for higher (paid) tasks.

[Grimmstail]

"...the other three branches of government don't matter..."

Could we get scare quotes around the word three or something? Unless you are suggesting that Cheney's Black Branch has some validity...