I Testified in Favor of Impeaching Bush & Cheney
by Timothy Horrigan; February 19, 2008
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On February 19, 2008, the New Hampshire House of Representatives (aka "The General Court") took up HR 24, introduced by longtime state representative Betty Hall. This is a hard-hitting resolution calling upon the US Congress to take up the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This may seem like a mere symbolic gesture (even if the bill passes.) However there is a legal theory that a state legislature can in fact force the US House to begin impeachment proceedings. And as a symbolic gesture qua symbolic gesture, it would be pretty spectacular.
Ironically the wide scope of Bush & Cheney's crimes and misdemeanours makes it harder to impeach them. Bill Clinton lied about a blow job. (And no one outside the Capitol Beltway really cared about that.) That was pretty easy to understand. But this time around, it is impossible to keep track of everything which has gone wrong. There are literally too many reasons to impeach Cheney & Bush.
Betty
Hall addresses supporters in front of the State House; Feb. 19,.
2008
I was one of about 200 citizens who packed a small hearing room on the 3rd floor of the New Hampshire Legislative Office Building. I went on the spur of the moment, and I was not planning on speaking until I decided to do so while signing in for the hearing.
This is (more or less) the one minute speech I gave. (I say more or less because I deviated slightly from what I wrote down on a scrap of paper. This version is based on my scrap of paper (which actually was the back of a copy of Ms Hall's bill) but was revised to reflect what I think I actually said:
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President Bush and Vice President Cheney have committed high crimes. And their pattern of contempt for the democratic process and the rule of law is a misdemeanour. President Bush spoke eloquently this morning— well, he spoke as eloquently as he knows how— in favor of the democratic process in Cuba while reacting the news that Fidel Castro was stepping down. If democracy and the rule of law are good enough for Cuba, and for Iraq, they are good enough for the USA. We must remove Bush & Cheney now to restore democracy and the rule of law in our country. We cannot wait for them to issue a signing statement to the effect that they don't have to leave office on January 20 2009. |
I was just speaking as an ordinary citizen, but to my surprise I was subjected to some fairly challenging questioning by the chairperson, Kris Roberts (Democrat from Keene) and from a Republican, Alfred Baldasaro from Derry. They challenged me to state which high crimes I thought Bush & Cheney had committed and what proof I had for my allegations. I said that the charges in the resolution were factual but it was up to the US House to decide what the charges should be and that it wasn't up to me to prove them. I did mention the illegal war in Iraq, and Baldasaro (a tough Marine who, as he reminded us about 50 times in a 4-hour session, served in Desert Storm) asked me if I had seen any of the intel reports about Saddam. Luckily, I had actually read the unclassified versions of the National Intelligence Estimates which ostensibly justified the war.
NH
Rep. Al Baldasaro (R-Derry)
Here is the text of Ms Hall's bill:
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Happily this bill, like all bills in our state legislature, still gets to go to the full house. The voting system, even though it is confusing, is democratic: unless the sponsors withdraw the bill, there is no way to deny a bill a fair hearing. |
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*House
STATE-FEDERAL RELATIONS AND VETERANS AFFAIRS* |
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The only significant mainstream media coverage of the February 19 hearing was a small article in the local daily, The Concord Monitor: |
See Also:
The
New Hampshire legislature has a confusing voting system. All votes
are on committee reports. In this case, when the bill was
"execked" on February 20, the committee voted 10-5 in
favor of a report stating that the bill should be killed, because
it was "Inexpedient to Legislate." A "yes"
vote was a vote against Hall's bill (and hence a vote against
impeachment.) However, a minority "Ought to Pass" report
in favor of impeachment did get a third of the votes.