Senate reconsiders America's Priorities...

With Congress returning from recess preoccupied with the banking bailout, several bills affecting archives and history have sat on the backburner. Back in July, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) introduced legislation that placed 36 separate bills together in an attempt to attract enough support to force the whole package to a vote in the Senate.

Among the bills encompassed by the Advancing America's Priorities Act (S. 3297) are:

• A bill (H.R. 390) introduced by the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., that would authorize the National Archives to create an electronic database of slave and post-Civil War reconstruction records.
• A bill (H.R. 3320) seeking development of a permanent collection at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
• A bill seeking creation of a federal commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 1812 (S. 1079).
• Authorization for the Smithsonian Institution to build a greenhouse (H.R. 5492).
  

These bills and others have been stalled by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) who has made prolific use of "holds" to prevent legislation he doesn't like from moving forward. Sen. Coburn defends his roadblock efforts, arguing that many of the bills are duplicative and require unnecessary spending to fund their implementation.

While a motion to invoke cloture on S. 3297 and proceed with a vote stalled in July, Senate members are back from recess with renewed energy to get the the bill back on track. We'll see just how far the Senate is willing to go to "Advance America's Priorities" in the coming days.