STATESMANSHIP in Congressional

                     Positions of leadership

      By burt hall

There are not many statesmen left today in Congress who set a good tone and truly represent the American people. They are the courageous ones who look at the big picture and put principle before party.  From the very inception of this country, we have been blessed with many statesmen.

Among Senate Republicans -- Hagel, Lugar, and McCain -- are three who come close to that ideal.  In the House of Representatives one must look long and hard to find anyone who is a real statesman.  This important attribute gradually eroded when the radical right took over House leadership in the 90’s and the country became polarized.

To illustrate the damage that can be done by poor statesmanship, this article will focus on one powerful House leader whose excesses weakened the nation and endangered our security.  Desperate to further his own agenda, this leader does not hesitate to abuse power and does not play by the rules or follow the U.S. Constitution.  He decides what he wants to do and then pursues a win-at-any-cost strategy to achieve it.

That person is Tom DeLay.  He is being investigated in Texas for campaign practices, has been instrumental in rearranging Texas House districts to favor Republicans and has violated House voting rules for bills like the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Little is known, however, about the harm he did to the nation in an attempt to remove a twice-elected president.  Although he left no fingerprints, five books published since then have unraveled what actually happened.

Despite revelations in Ken Starr’s report, about 70 percent of the American people favored Clinton remaining in office.  They made their views known by render­ing a huge setback to Republicans during midterm elections.  At this juncture, the idea of impeachment was, for all practical purposes, dead.¹    It would have faded away to censure had it not been revived by one person, Tom DeLay.

As House Whip at the time, DeLay took extraordinary steps (including blackmail of other members) to force impeachment through the House.²   He began this action during the summer of ’98 before Starr had released his report.  At that time terrorists had just attacked two of our embassies, killing over 200 people and injuring about 5000.   At this juncture, Osama bin Laden also declared war on the United States.³

Despite the war declaration and inevitability of further attacks, DeLay decided to drive the President from office -- first impeach and then force him to resign.  He decided on resignation because he was sure the Senate would not convict.  In his zeal, he ordered his staff to “dedicate yourselves to it or leave” (his employ) ... “to work day and night.”⁴

Due to the election setback, the Republican majority would dwindle to almost nothing in the next Congress.  There was little time left in the current “lame duck” session to bring impeachment to a vote -- but DeLay found a way. 

He first coached Chairman Hyde of the Judiciary Committee on conduct of the hearings.⁵   This conduct differed from Nixon’s impeachment hearings in several respects.  The Committee called no witnesses, conducted only partisan hearings and had only party-line votes.⁶   And, the Presi­dent’s lawyers had to testify without knowledge of what the charges would be.⁷   

Once impeachment was underway, DeLay and his 60 Republican members, designated as whips, went to work.  For example, they blocked all efforts to allow a vote on censure that was preferred by many members.⁸   At the same time, DeLay applied intense pressure to those who were wavering or on the fence, by:

·             Threatening loss of their chairmanship.

·             Threatening to arrange a strong challenge to them in their next congressional race.

·             Threatening to enlist the help of fund raisers and party officials against them.

·             Threatening to expose them to their constituents, if they viewed DeLay’s “evidence room” and still cleared Clinton.⁹ This room contained uncorroborated and undocumented material that not even Starr saw fit to print.¹⁰

To illustrate, DeLay’s office threatened a Republican congressman, who opposed impeach­ment, with (1) being stripped of his chairmanship and (2) making "the next two years the longest of his life."¹¹   

Millions of U.S. citizens sent letters, e-mails and petitions pleading with Congress to censure the President and move on with the country’s business.  Eventually, lines of communications to Washington broke down.

Bob Woodward later reported that Chairman Hyde was willing to accept censure, had his leadership been willing.¹²

At the end, Speaker Livingston reversed himself saying, “Stop this ... This is crazy ... We’re going to have a censure vote.”  But others prevailed on him to go ahead.¹³

Delay defies the U.S. Constitution and

Our founding fathers

The impeachment of a president is the modern-day, civilized alternative to assassi­nation of a king.   To avoid Britain’s partisan misuse of impeachment and because our constitutional framers distrusted legislatures, they limited its use to grave breaches of official duties, specifically to treason and bribery.  When our framers added “other high crimes and misdemeanors,” the term “other” meant something on a similar plane with treason and bribery. ¹⁴

The term “high misdemeanors” actually refers to serious offenses against the state as in 18^th century England, not the minor or trivial offenses as we interpret misdemeanors today.   As one framer said, we are talking about “great and dangerous offenses.” ¹⁵

Four hundred historians and 430 law professors warned House leaders against impeachment.  The law professors said members of Congress would violate their constitutional responsibilities if they sought to remove the president for reasons that fell short of constitutional standards.¹⁶ 

Many scholars agreed with George Mason’s statement that impeachment must be for a great crime or an attempt to subvert the Constitution.  Another founding father, James Madison, opposed a low standard because it would create a weakened presidency, serving at the pleasure of Congress.¹⁷

Alexander Hamilton warned “the greatest danger (is) that the decision (to impeach) will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”¹⁸

The framers of our Constitution wanted the highest possible bar for removing a president.  House leaders ignored their intent and even refused to establish standards for impeachment articles or for voting on them.¹⁹

Common sense tells us that our founding fathers put impeachment in the Constitu­tion to deal with serious breaches of official duties and great crimes against society.  If impeach­ment, instead, concerned such things as covering up a personal mistake, some of our founding fathers them­selves would have been vulnerable and some fine national leaders of yesterday would have been lost. 

The impeach­ment remedy was intended to preserve constitutional government by removing from office an official who subverts it, not someone who covers up a private matter.²⁰

Implications

DeLay would not permit our country to move on with censure and, instead, created governmental paralysis by forcing a presidential impeachment and Senate trial that most Americans opposed.  The impeachment had nothing to do with performance and defied not only our Constitution, but also our founding fathers and a vast majority of the American people.

The President did not resign and the Senate refused to convict (as DeLay knew they would).²¹   However, his abuse of power and irresponsible actions had consequences: (1) they disrupted the nation and diverted it from preparing for further terrorist attacks and (2) they weakened our presidency and lowered the bar for impeaching future presidents.  The impeachment and trial may have influenced the outcome of election 2000.

Rather than wasting time and energy with impeachment, Congress needed to oversee the nation's preparedness for

global terror­ism.  Several attacks on the United States already had been made and one day Congress itself would become a target.  Two more attacks followed – the USS Cole and 9-11.  Now, there are warnings of more.  We paid an enormous price for Delay’s abuses of power and lack of statesmanship.

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Burt Hall was a Group Director (analyst) of the U.S. General Accounting Office on national security matters. He is the author of several articles, including “9-11 and a Lack of Presidential Leadership”, and a best selling book, “How the Experts Win at Bridge”.

Sources

1.          The Clinton Wars, p.539.

2.          The Clinton Wars, pp. 537-43.

3.          U.S. Never Had Firm Grip on Terrorism, NY Times.

4.          The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, pp. 43-4.

5.          The Clinton Wars, p. 538.

6.          Representative Zoe Lofgren’s e-mail to Moveon.

7.          The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, p. 204.

8.          The Clinton Wars, p. 538.

9.          The Clinton Wars, pp. 540-1.

10.    The Clinton Wars, pp. 540-3.

11.    The Clinton Wars, pp. 538-9. 

12.    Shadow – 5 Presidents and Legacy of Watergate, pp. 484-9.

13.    The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, p. 16.

14.    Criminal? Possibly, Impeachable? No, L.A. Times.

15.    A Vast Conspiracy, pp. 333-4.

16.    The Clinton Wars, pp. 490-1, 500-3.

17.    The Clinton Wars, p. 504.

18.    Criminal? Possibly, Impeachable? No, L.A. Times.

19.    The Clinton Wars, p. 500.

20.    Criminal? Possibly, Impeachable? No, L.A. Times.

21.    The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, p. 44.

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