A Change It Is A-Coming

In the next few months, there will be quite a bit of partisan wrangling over how to fix problems such as the economy, health care, and the war in Iraq.

Other issues, however, will be a bit easier to solve:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse the president on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

Because these were done solely through the executive branch, Obama could overturn these with a simple executive order, rather than having Congress. The list of what they're considering overturning reads like a list of different cuts of red meat for the base:

Obama himself has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush's controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases such as Parkinson's. Bush's August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

But Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said that during Obama's final swing through her state in October, she reminded him that because the restrictions were never included in legislation, Obama "can simply reverse them by executive order." Obama, she said, "was very receptive to that." Opponents of the restrictions have already drafted an executive order he could sign.

The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City Policy, but Bush reimposed it.

It cannot be understated how dangerous and short-sighted the global gag rule is. It limits the free speech of family-planning groups abroad receiving U.S. funding by preventing them from dispensing medically accurate information. Many of these groups won't even distribute or give information about regular forms of contraception for fear of running afoul of the gag rule. Meanwhile, thousands of women die each year from unsafe abortions. Such a policy would be unconstitutional if it were imposed within the U.S., and I'm glad that Obama will fulfill his promise to repeal it immediately.

Other actions he'll immediately undertake include recognizing California's right to place its own limits on carbon emissions. States rights and all that.