Takoma Park City Council to vote on impeachment resolution today
Posted by Thomas Nephew on July 23rd, 2007
From the “Takoma Park, MD Impeach Bush & Cheney” press release :
On Monday, July 23rd at 7:30 P.M. the Takoma Park, MD City Council will vote on a resolution that calls for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney and President Bush. If the measure passes, Takoma Park will become the first municipality in the Washington, DC area to pass an impeachment resolution. Currently eighty towns and cities across the country have passed impeachment resolutions, including Detroit, MI, San Francisco, CA, Chapel Hill, NC, several towns in Vermont and, most recently, West Hollywood, CA. The Rules of the House of Representatives allow Congress to accept petitions from state and local governments, which are then recorded by the Clerk of the House in the Congressional Journal.
The resolution, now posted at the city’s web site, was sponsored by Councilman Reuben Snipper. It lists the fraudulent case for the Iraq war, torture, warrantless electronic surveillance, indefinite detentions of American citizens, and Presidential signing statements as grounds for impeachment. A copy of the resolution, annotated with links to supporting news items and analyses, is available at the TPIB&C web site.
In the absence of action in Congress, gathering and proving local support for impeachment seems to me a good and logical place for impeachment advocates to begin. Yet resolutions like this one can sometimes unaccountably elicit eye-rolling responses — even from some impeachment advocates. I had a friendly exchange with Jim Henley (proprietor of the deservedly popular “Unqualified Offerings” blog) about this over the weekend, after running into him and his family during Pottermania at a local Border’s Books and mentioning the resolution. Henley (who has opined that just about every president since Kennedy has merited impeachment) termed the pending resolution part “silly,” part “embarrassingly earnest.” I responded:
I don’t think we deserve that. If Congress were showing signs of doing anything about impeachment, I might agree. But they aren’t. This is a legitimate “sense of the people” idea; assuming it passes — knock on wood — it would also tell our Congressman (and DCCC chair) Chris Van Hollen that many of his voters, many of the people he collects money from, and even many of the people he shares microphones with feel strongly about the Constitution, human rights, and the separation of powers. The resolution itself is pretty good, I think, mentioning the fraudulent case for the war, torture, indefinite detention, warrantless electronic surveillance, and signing statements as grounds for impeaching both Bush and Cheney.
There’s nothing wrong and a lot right about city councils making these kinds of things topics of respectable discussion — especially when politicians who *ought* to be doing so won’t. It gives those of us who support the idea a first rung up the ladder to work towards, and gives our reps higher up the political food chain a sense it’s not “just” DFHs who support the idea. Community petitions like this one are often a part of getting “oh it’s hopeless” ideas rolling — abolition, nuclear weapons freeze, to name a couple. Of course they don’t guarantee success. They’re just one way to start trying.
Category: Post. Tags: impeachment, takoma park, takoma park impeachment resolution.
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July 24th, 2007 at 2:08 am
You’re an inspiration. I’m eager to see how the vote turns out. Good luck!
July 24th, 2007 at 3:26 am
Woohoo!! Congratulations, a unanimous vote.
Slowly, previous naysayers are turning to the only Constitution-preserving alternative. Thanks for your work!
July 24th, 2007 at 5:33 am
It was great — lots of people showed up! I was so relieved, that was important.
Channel 5 — Fox! — did this superb piece with it; happened to run into me heading to the meeting with a bunch of signs and talking to a neighbor about it before the vote.
And the people who spoke! It was just about straight out of that Norman Rockwell painting.