"The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush"April 16, 2008
A Visit to New Hampshire in Support of HR24
by Phil Burk
Betty Hall, an 87 year old New Hampshire state legislator, is an American hero. She introduced HR24 in the New Hampshire House, which calls for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. The first time she did this she was laughed off the floor. The second time she got about 40 votes. This week she got 97 votes and the resolution is tabled but still alive.
I was invited by "Hutch" to come and help out so on April 13th I traveled to Concord, New Hampshire from California. I contacted Debbie Gibbons who was organizing volunteers. My first task was to lobby some legislators. The first call was to a very friendly Republican woman who said she was opposed to HR24 but lucky for us she would be a "no vote" on April 16th. She had been invited to a party with Bush in the White House to greet the Pope. I asked her to say HI from "phil at ImpeachBush.tv". The next fellow I called, also a Republican, simply blurted out "HR24 can go straight to hell - click". I put him down as a "no". The other calls were more positive. One Democratic woman said her main reason for supporting HR24 was because she did not want future Presidents to inherit his expanded powers.
The next day I joined Betty Hall, Daniel Ellsberg, John Nichols, Bob Bowman, Dan DeWalt, and many other supporters for a press conference in Concord. The room was overflowing with press and supporters. We then had a "meet and greet" with legislators who wanted to talk about HR24. As usual the attendees were mostly people who already supported HR24. But there was a lone dissenter, Representative Baldasaro, who stood outside in the cold holding a sign.
Baldasaro had earlier introduced an amendment that charged NH Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter with a litany of absurd crimes, mostly involving voting in Congress in ways that he disagreed, and called for her expulsion. Baldasaro tied it to HR24 by accusing her of not impeaching Bush and thereby creating the need for HR24. Of course we need a majority in the House to impeach so even if Shea-Porter had introduced an impeachment resolution we would still need HR24. This is known as a "poison pill" amendment because if you want HR24 to pass you also have to debate this amendment. So some Representatives will vote to table a bill rather than swallow the poison pill.
That evening there was a rally and teach-in for the public. The evening started with an impeachment video that cast Bush and Cheney as devils. It may have entertained the fans of HR24 but sadly anyone on the fence could easily have been turned off.
Granny D of "Go Granny Go" fame spoke along with Betty Hall. John Nichols gave an inspiring speech on the history and importance of impeachment with excellent quotes from Jefferson, Lincoln and others. Daniel Ellsberg was the featured speaker and drew amazing parallels between the impeachment charges aimed at Nixon and the charges against Bush. We can learn far more from the near impeachment of Nixon than by the politically motivated impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Many of the charges against Nixon were specifically for spying on Ellsberg and retaliating agaisnt him for his publishing the Pentagon Papers, which helped end the Vietnam War.
Paul Stookey of "Peter, Paul and Mary" fame sang a new song he had composed called "In These Times". Then Lieutenant Colonel Bob Bowman spoke. Bob was a former commander of the Star Wars program before Reagan revealed its existence and claimed it was a defensive missile shield. Bow blew the whistle by revealing that it was actually an offensive system intended to hit targets on Earth. Bob also read an open letter to the current military commanders asking them to refuse to attack Iraq if ordered so by President Bush. And if Bush tries to attack then they should arrest him for War Crimes. Bob assured us this would not be a military coup and that he believed the military would honor the line of succession for finding a new President. Then I spoke about the use of local resolutions as a tool for promoting impeachment.
The next day I met with Debbie Gibbons and Nancy White. They are working closely with Betty Hall on HR24. We planned some last minute lobbying and created a flyer to hand out to Reps as they entered the House for Wednesday’s vote.
On April 16th we converged on the Capitol in Concord New Hampshire. Betty Hall introduced Bob Bowman and myself and we settled in for a long day of listening to other House business. Finally, mid-afternoon, the vote for HR24 came up. Betty gave a wonderful speech in favor of HR24. Then Representative Hess spoke in opposition. He pointed out several problems with HR24 related to the specifics of the text. The text had been derived from many sources including the Vermont Senate resolution.
HR24 started with a reference to Jefferson’s Manual Section 603, which says “charges transmitted from a state legislature” can initiate impeachment. But Rep. Hess pointed out that HR24 is only a House resolution and not a joint resolution of the full legislature. This is true but what many people fail to understand is that Section 603 is only a historical record. It is not a law granting states the right to initiate impeachment. A state government cannot force the US Congress to impeach. But they do have the right to petition Congress to impeach based on the 1st Amendment. So it is perfectly valid for just the State House of Representatives to send a petition to Congress.
Rep. Hess also pointed out that some of the specific charges, such as the one related to depleted uranium, only violates a United Nations Subcommittee ruling and is not illegal under US law. Also HR24 warrants that Bush is guilty but then it calls for investigations. How can we know for certain he is guilty before we investigate and hold the trial?
So even though Hess did not convince anyone that Bush was innocent, he did raise some valid objections to the language of HR24. This apparently rattled enough Representatives that a Democrat introduced a motion to table HR24 and it passed 227 to 95. HR24 is now on hold. But it can be revived by a simple majority vote.
Many of the objections from Representative Hess apply equally to the model impeachment resolution on our www.ImpeachBush.TV website. So I rewrote our model resolution to address his concerns. The new resolution does not mention Section 603 because it just confuses too many people. The new resolution also only says that Bush “may” be guilty so Congress should investigate and determine whether there is sufficient evidence to impeach. Guilt or innocence would then be determined by a trial in the Senate.
We hope that the new model resolution may be more easily passed by city and state governments.
