Behind closed doors

Conference committees, when I started covering Congress, met in public with appointed members of the relevant House and Senate committees hashing out a deal in open meetings. Sure, much of the tricky compromising was done behind closed doors, but that is true of legislating at all levels. Without a conference committee, even chairmen with great seniority and expertise will not be influential in this process, let alone your average member of Congress. All of this will be decided by negotiators for the White House along with Senate and House leaders.

Just three years ago, before Democrats took the Senate back and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was leading the minority, he complained that GOP leaders were seeking to negotiate asbestos legislation in private by circumventing a conference committee. Republicans are crying foul now that the leadership will decide the fate of one-sixth of the economy behind closed doors.

Breaking with the traditional conference committee is controversial, but breaking the healthcare reform negotiations on C-SPAN promise is worse. Although Lamb of C-SPAN wrote the administration and congressional leaders a letter urging them to allow cameras at the healthcare reform negotiations, no one working for President Obama needs a refresher on his bold campaign promise. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was pummeled with questions about it and last week fell into a robotic state every time he had to answer another query from the media, telling them: “I haven’t seen that letter” and “I said I hadn’t seen the letter, which I hadn’t.” When Chip Reid of CBS News asked whether Gibbs agreed that President Obama was breaking an explicit campaign promise, Gibbs said, “Chip, we covered this yesterday and I would refer you to yesterday’s transcript.”

Gibbs must want Chip Reid to read his stonewalling about the letter he won’t read. This is tranparency in the Obama administration.

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