The People's Path to Impeachment

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet. Posted June 26, 2006.

On June 6, Jim Bronke of Concord, Penn., addressed the Concord Township board of supervisors:

Township supervisors and friends, I come here today not as a Republican or as a Democrat but as an American citizen concerned for our way of life. I hope that you can view this package not as a political statement but as a plan for the future … Rules of the House of Representatives explicitly allow state and city legislatures to introduce resolutions. Our First Amendment guarantees any citizen, city, or state "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This is what I ask you to do with this motion.

Bronke requested that the board consider a motion to request an impeachment inquiry of the president of the United States. When a board supervisor told Bronke that the only path to impeachment was through U.S. senators and representatives, Bronke corrected the supervisor, stating that "there are multiple paths toward impeachment, this is another."

Bronke was absolutely right.

The Concord board is hardly national news. But taken in conjunction with the staggering number of state legislatures and city and town councils across the country that have passed impeachment resolutions, the lack of coverage of the movement is a conspicuous absence in mainstream media.

Illinois, Vermont and California state legislatures have impeachment resolutions pending. The Democratic parties of Vermont, New Hampshire, Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, California and Hawaii have all passed resolutions. Then there are the 18 city and town councils that have passed resolutions, with seven more resolutions (including Concord) pending, to say nothing of the 27 local political groups and parties across the country that have adopted impeachment resolutions.

The broad sweep is not surprising as the evidence is well-documented: President George W. Bush lied to Congress and the American people in order to lead the country into war, and continues to conduct illegal wiretaps, sanction torture and violate the separation of powers by picking and choosing congressional legislation.

Despite the clear case, impeachment has become a taboo word in D.C. politics. A chasm has emerged between high-level politicians too afraid to push for accountability, the media that seeks the "news" that comes from these politicians and their circles, and the American public they are supposed to be serving.

In a recent Zogby poll, Americans were asked what would restore their trust in government and the No. 1 reply was "personnel changes/impeachment." As David Swanson of impeachpac.org notes, polls by Ipsos, Zogby and American Research Group have found support between 43 percent and 53 percent. And if it's Democrats, the numbers shoot up to 80-90 percent, with a consistent majority of Independents supporting impeachment.

Onnesha Roychoudhuri is a former assistant editor of AlterNet.

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