...Oh, my.
WHEREAS, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature; and
WHEREAS, President Bush has publicly admitted to ordering the National Security Agency to violate provisions of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a felony, specifically authorizing the Agency to spy on American citizens without warrant; and
WHEREAS, Evidence suggests that President Bush authorized violation of the Torture Convention of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty regarded a supreme law by the United States Constitution; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration has held American citizens and citizens of other nations as prisoners of war without charge or trial; and
WHEREAS, Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration has manipulated intelligence for the purpose of initiating a war against the sovereign nation of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of large numbers of Iraqi civilians and causing the United States to incur loss of life, diminished security and billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration leaked classified national secrets to further a political agenda, exposing an unknown number of covert U. S. intelligence agents to potential harm and retribution while simultaneously refusing to investigate the matter; and
WHEREAS, the Republican-controlled Congress has decline to fully investigate these charges to date; therefore be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE SENATE CONCURRING HEREIN, that the General Assembly of the State of Illinois has good cause to submit charges to the U. S. House of Representatives under Section 603 that the President of the United States has willfully violated his Oath of Office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; and be it further
RESOLVED, That George W. Bush, if found guilty of the charges contained herein, should be removed from office and disqualified to hold any other office in the United States.
I did not realize that the rules of the US House allowed for impeachment proceedings to be called from below in this manner.
It will never fly, of course. I don't know whether or not it will make it out of the Illinois General Assembly -- both houses are Democrat held, but I'm not sure that either would be comfortable voting this out, nor am I sure that the governor would sign the resulting law (if he's even required to do so). Any successful law would also require the US House, controlled by the president's party, to actually act on this resolution, and that I cannot imagine them doing. Even if the House swings back to the Democrats after midterm elections, it likely would not act -- and given the Democrats' studied reluctance to capitalize on any of the various scandals or crises during the campaigns and their studied lack of any sort of message or position on any issue whatsoever, I can't imagine that they'll gain more than maybe one or two seats in either chamber, so it's not as though they'll be able to do anything anyway.
But still. If Illinois and Vermont and possibly Pennsylvania and other states forward to the House demands for impeachment to be debated ... won't it be interesting to watch them frantically trying to dodge this issue?
Posted by iain at April 25, 2006 04:46 PM
