Dave Lindorff: It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi et al

[Demeter]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/823


In the State of Washington, it is the people versus Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership....At issue is bill S8016, submitted in the state Senate by freshman state Senator Eric Oemig that would call on the U.S. Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution and the people of the United States and of the State of Washington.


The measure, which would take the form of a joint resolution by the two houses of the Washington state legislature, accords with the instructions laid out by founder Thomas Jefferson, who, in his Manual of the Rules of the House of Representatives, laid out state joint resolutions as an alternative route for initiating presidential impeachment proceedings in the House in addition to the more usual route of a member submitting a bill of impeachment....Jefferson's prescient thinking was that if Congress, by reason of political cowardice or inattention, ever proved unwilling or unable to initiate impeachment when it was called for, state legislators, far from Washington and closer to the people, could do it for them.


But two unprincipled and devious Democratic members of Washington's congressional delegation, Sen. Pat Murray and Rep. Jay Inslee, are undermining Jefferson's carefully designed fail-safe system by pressuring Democratic state legislators to kill Sen. Oemig's bill. The Seattle Times in a March 2 article, reports that Murray and Inslee are telling Democrats in the state senate to kill the impeachment bill on the grounds that it would lead to "divisiveness" in Washington, and that it would impede the "Democratic agenda" in Congress....Clearly, Murray and Inslee have decided to abandon their constituents in the state of Washington, a majority of whom want this criminal president impeached, and are instead doing the bidding of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who have completely lost touch with the nation's voters and with their own sense of principle.


But this battle is not over. The grassroots movement in Washington that has led to Sen. Oemig's bill getting as far as a hearing in the Senate's Government Operations and Elections Committee, is growing rapidly. The Citizens Committee for Impeachment in Olympia, with almost no money and no press coverage, brought 900 people to a rally a week before the committee hearing, and hundreds more to the capitol building on the day of the hearing. A massive phone and letter-writing campaign to committee members and state senators is now underway to insure the bill goes to a vote in the full Senate.

If Democratic state legislators know what is good for them, they will send Murray and Inslee packing back to Washington state and will vote to defend the Constitution and their constituents by approving Sen. Oemig's bill in both houses and sending his resolution to the House, forcing Pelosi to put impeachment back on the House agenda where it belongs.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist. His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net and at www.counterpunch.org. His latest book, co-authored with Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office" (St. Martin's Press, 2006).

[Stuckinthebush]

1. How many State legislatures need to do this

In order for it to work?

[Demeter]

2. A State With Responsive Reps in Congress Should Do It

as far as I can tell....then it's up to the House.