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 News from Around the Americas | April 2006 
Bush Impeachment - The Illinois State Legislature Is Preparing to Drop a Bombshell
 Steven Leser - OpEd News
| | US President George W. Bush address the Renewable Fuels Association convention at the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC. Bush ordered an investigation into possible manipulation of prices at gasoline stations and suspended deposits into America's strategic oil reserves, as the US government tried to rein in record-high fuel costs. (AFP/Tim Sloan) |
Utilizing a little known rule of the US House to bring Impeachment charges.
The Illinois General Assembly is about to rock the nation. Members of state legislatures are normally not considered as having the ability to decide issues with a massive impact to the nation as a whole. Representative Karen A. Yarbrough of Illinois' 7th District is about to shatter that perception forever.
Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature. From there, Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 (hereafter to be referred to as HJR0125) was born.
Detailing five specific charges against President Bush including one that is specified to be a felony. One of the interesting points is that one of the items, the one specified as a felony, that the NSA was directed by the President to spy on American citizens without warrant, is not in dispute.
That fact should prove an interesting dilemma for a Republican controlled US House that clearly is not only loathe to initiate impeachment proceedings, but does not even want to thoroughly investigate any of the five items brought up by the Illinois Assembly as high crimes and/or misdemeanors. Should HJR0125 be passed by the Illinois General Assembly, the US House will be forced by House Rules to take up the issue of impeachment as a privileged bill, meaning it will take precedence over other House business.
The Illinois General Assembly joins a growing chorus of voices calling for censure or impeachment of President Bush including Democratic state committees in Vermont, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina as well as the residents themselves of seven towns in Vermont, seventy Vermont state legislators and Congressman John Conyers. The call for impeachment is starting to grow well beyond what could be considered a fringe movement.
An ABC News/Washington Post Poll Conducted April 6-9 showed that 33% of Americans currently support Impeaching President Bush, coincidentally, only a similar amount supported impeaching Nixon at the start of the Watergate investigation. If and when Illinois HJR0125 hits the capitol and the individual charges are publicly investigated, that number is likely to grow rapidly. Combined with the very real likelihood that Rove is about to be indicted in the LeakGate investigation, and Bush is in real trouble beyond his plummeting poll numbers. His cronies in the Republican dominated congress will probably save him from the embarassment of an impeachment conviction, for now, but his Presidency will be all but finished.
Democrat Asks Legislature to Push Bush Impeachment
Tracy Swartz - Chicago Sun-Times
Springfield - Leave it to the Democratic-controlled state Legislature to find an obscure way to attempt to oust President Bush.
State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) has sponsored a resolution calling on the General Assembly to submit charges to the U.S. House so its lawmakers could begin impeachment proceedings.
It would be the first state legislature to pass such a resolution, though the measure faces a dim future in a Republican-controlled Congress.
"This is absolutely ridiculous," said John McGovern, a spokesman for U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Only the U.S. House can formally initiate impeachment proceedings.
Yarbrough is hoping to get the U.S. House's attention through her grass-roots effort. She already has picked up two co-sponsors to her legislation, Democratic state Representatives Eddie Washington (Waukegan) and Sara Feigenholtz (Chicago).
According to the resolution, Bush has "willfully violated his oath of office" by manipulating intelligence to start the war in Iraq, leaking classified national secrets and authorizing illegal spying on American citizens.
"This president has acted like an emperor," Yarbrough said.
To support her legislation, Yarbrough is relying on a provision from Jefferson's Manual, a procedural handbook written by Thomas Jefferson as a supplement to U.S. House rules.
Anti-Bush Sentiment There
Jefferson wrote that there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion, including "charges transmitted from the legislature of a State."
If Yarbrough's resolution passes the General Assembly, it would go to the U.S. House, where it likely would be referred to the Judiciary Committee, said a spokesman for the Committee on U.S. House Administration.
"It's up to that committee to decide what action it will take, if any," committee spokesman Jon Brandt said. "[The resolution] does not, in and of itself, start a process."
Nevertheless, a handful of cities and state Democratic committees have adopted impeachment resolutions similar to Yarbrough's. Vermont Democrats agreed earlier this month to urge lawmakers to approve it at the state level.
These groups hope the measures generate dialogue that will eventually lead to impeachment.
In Illinois, it is uncertain whether Yarbrough's measure will make its way to a floor vote. House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has not voiced an opinion on the legislation, and the session is winding down.
But the anti-Bush sentiment is there. Lawmakers toyed with keeping him off the presidential ballot in 2004, and Democrats mocked him this month during floor debate.
Said Yarbrough: "I'm not a baseball or a football or a sports person, but I know when the team isn't doing well, they don't get rid of the team, they get rid of the coach." |
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