Post-Modern Impeachment
April 25th, 2006President Bush’s Impeachment may very well be imminent.
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.
By all means, look at the link and read the rest, which includes a summary of the bill and the actual text. This news is particularly stunning, and in my view it’s appalling. Most Democrats and some Republicans likely take heart from this, as thirty percent of the American public supports impeaching President Bush, but my first-thought is to heed caution, caution caution. And a rule change for the House of Representatives to ensure that this never happens again.
Why? Well, the first reason is that impeachment is a careful, methodical and, yes, painfully slow issue. You can not launch impeachment proceedings in an election year without smoking gun evidence, and any premature impeachment is doomed to fail. The House of Representatives moved slowly to impeach Nixon because they knew that if they worked too fast, it would appear like a witch hunt, and that would be doomed to fail. Not only that, but it would give Republicans a chance to say, “They impeached Nixon and found nothing!” making any future impeachment for future crimes or larger revelations impossible. You taint the legitimacy of the Congress and of the process if you impeach willy nilly.
The second reason that this is a bad idea revolves solely around the idea of witchhunts. President Clinton was hard-pressed to avoid impeachment because the Gingrinch Who Shut Down the Government was determined to be the Gingrinch Who Impeached the President and Vice President, and he was dealing with hard-ball politicians. Despite this, he staved the Impeachment off for several years, and by that time it was clear that there was nothing removable about his behavior. You let the states do this, and they’ll impeach Presidents without notice and turn this nation into a banana republic.
You think that’s funny? Far-fetched? Had a South Carolinan legislator found this rule during the Clinton years, I’m sure he’d have been impeached much sooner. Why should we give states with Far-Left or Hard-Right political bents a tool with which to assail any President they dislike on criminal grounds because of political differences? It’ll lead to gridlock and erode the distinction between a state’s responsibilities and the federal government’s.
The third reason is that there’s no reason for the national government to be forced into action like this by statehouses, as it interferes with federalist thought — or, at least, modern federalism. The federal government is stronger, and should be. There’s no reason to give the states this sort of power, and I’d urge the House to change their rules immediately so as to keep impeachment proceedings the way they always have been: as a staple of the House’s diet, not a tool to be used at whim by statehouses.
Now, to close, let’s make a distinction. I’m arguing that Impeachment as illustrated by this obscure, never-before-used-rule is wrong and should be prevented with a rule change to eliminate it. Should George Bush be impeached? Perhaps, and I lean toward an investigation, at the least. Just not like this, no way. After the Clinton Years, it seems everyone’s got their own post-Modern idea of Impeachment, but I don’t. It was wrong in the 1990s, and it would be just as wrong now.