Leading by Example
Vermont State Senate Moves Forward On Impeachment
“It’s amazing how the leaders will follow when the people lead.”That’s what Liza Earle of Richmond, one of the organizers of the Vermont impeachment movement, said Friday after the Vermont Senate voted 16-9 to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, whose political reputation took a beating over the last week, engineered the floor vote and pulled it off in just five minutes.
Sens. Jennette White, D-Windham, and Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, joined Shumlin to put together the wording of Senate Resolution 16, calling for initiation of impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney.
With Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, the presiding officer of the Senate, away on Friday, Shumlin was able to get the resolution quickly voted upon without debate and without having to refer it to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In one bold stroke, Shumlin was able to bypass House Speaker Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, who refuses to have her chamber take up Joint Resolution 15, the original impeachment measure now stalled in the House Judiciary Committee.
We think the tipping point came on Tuesday, when more than 100 pro-impeachment activists came to the Statehouse. They confronted Shumlin and Symington and reminded them that a majority of the people in Vermont want to see Bush and Cheney removed from office and that the Vermont Legislature could help get the ball rolling.
Shumlin apparently informed Symington after Tuesday’s tense confrontation with the pro-impeachment forces that he was going to go ahead with an impeachment vote without her backing.
“We all know there isn’t a president who deserves impeachment more than George Bush,” Shumlin said Friday. “How many speeches do you need to make the point?”
And that was the argument that the pro-impeachment forces made all along. A vote on an impeachment resolution was not going to be time consuming or take away lawmakers from other business. Shumlin proved that Friday, thanks to a little parliamentary sleight of hand.
Now, a copy of this resolution will be sent to Vermont’s congressional delegation. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernard Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch will be duly notified to initiate impeachment proceedings.
Chances are they won’t, but now, the Vermont Senate is on record calling for impeachment. The Vermont House is certainly welcome to join them, and we hope other legislative bodies around the country will join the impeachment parade.
Friday was a proud moment for Vermonters. Once again, the people led and the leaders followed. Once again, we showed the power of democracy and how that power will help put an end the long national nightmare of the Bush presidency.
© 2007 The Brattleboro Reformer
We are all Vermonters now.
Or is that Vermontonians?
Hooray for Vermont! “It’s amazing how the leaders will follow when the people lead.” What a great quote. I certainly hope it holds true when, on Wednesday, the GREAT leader Dennis Kucinich brings forth his articles of impeachment on Cheney. And I also hope it holds true on Saturday, 4/28, when the “We The People” of america have Impeachment Day gatherings.
COULD THIS TRULY BE THE BEGINNING OF THE SAVING OF OUR COUNTRY?! LET VERMONT BE AN EXAMPLE TO THE OTHER 49!
All this brouhaha for a meaningless resolution. Bush and Cheney will not be impeached and it’s a complete waste of time and effort for elected legislators to be pushing such a quixotic cause. It’s been all downhill for Bush and Cheney since the start of their second term. Giving them and their remaining supporters a cause to rally around is counterproductive and will only backfire.
RickX
With attitudes like yours it’s easy to see why the country is all screwed up.
Apparently, any State legislature can pass a BINDING resolution that would require the U.S. Congress to impeach a sitting official. Check this out:
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3323/8835/
Ethan Allen would be proud of you.
To Rick92X : Does your wife vote ? If she does then her right was promulgated by sixty years of lobbying Congress on the “quixotic cause” of Susan B.Anthony and Barbara Cady Stanton and other campaigners of the Women’s Right to Vote Movement , 1860-1920+or-
Are there any slaves still serving in England ? Or in any country in Europe ? Is there an industry called the slave trade in England or again , anywhere in Europe as there was in 1806 ? If your answer is no then that fact is attributable to the “quixotic cause” of one MP , William Wilberforce who “gave up” lobbying the British Parliament to abolish the slave-trade in 1807 and slavery in general in 1833. He “gave up” after thirty years because he ( more importantly , the slaves ) had won . Please feel free to check me up on dates but you get my point .
I’m sure that spending 17 or was it 27 years in prison would be construed as a “quixotic cause” by you while Nelson Mendela thinks otherwise .
As your delightful adjective ,”quixotic”,suggests , Cervantes’hero may have been demented but Anthony , Wilberforce , Mendela … certainly was not.
To paraphrase the revolution hero of what is now arguably the second most powerful nation on earth, ” A journey (quest) of a thousand miles begins with one step ” is to agree with Margaret Meade’s famous maxim, ” Never let it be said that a small group of dedicated individuals cannot bring about monumental change ; indeed , it is the only thing that ever will.”
Do us a favour and dust off your seldom-cracked history books and look for and read about the initially-alone leaders of ” quixotic causes “. Start with Martin Luther and then his namesake ; that should keep you busy for a while .
I would love to see impeachment debated at the state level. In fact, if city and town councils can pass resolutions on impeachment, have at it. The closer we can get this discussion to the people who vote, the better. It will serve notice to the entire Repugnican party that ulitmately, they will be held accountable for the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by this administration.
They will have to explain why they mindlessly goosestepped along with policies that include deliberate lying in order to declare illegal preemptive war on a country that posed no real threat to the US; destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives; conspired to “out” a CIA operative for the purpose of discrediting someone who exposed administration lies; violated international laws, including those prohibiting torture, allegedly in the interest of national security, when the result has been that security is even more compromised; violated constitutionally mandated checks and balances; undermined constitutional rights to due process; aided and abetted political corruption, in part to achieve a “one party” control of all branches of government; tarnished the integrity of the Dept of Justice through cronyism and conspiracy to obstruct justice. And the list goes on.
So yeah, I think it would do the country a lot of good to discuss impeachment anywhere and everywhere we can.
Impeachment, yes. For the sheer need to get accountability back into public service, and to serve as a better role model to impressional children than a president acting like some kind of wild wild west cowboy who ENJOYS using all the weapons at his disposal. Some leadership. As if he has some kind of karmic free pass.
In a good many countries, the citizens and veterans, seeing that their elected representatives enabled and supported an incompetent, creepy criminal, who egregiously violated the laws and the constitution, would have raided the White House and dragged the little scumbag out and beat him to death with their prosthetics. And then they would have gone to their Congress and whacked on a more than a few Repubs and Dems.
Since Republican philosophy-in-practice holds that we are no longer a country of laws, and since our founding documents tell us we can overthrow an unjust government, well, hell…
Okay, it’s a fantasy, but when people like Bush and Rove and Cheney and Roberts and Alito and the Republican congressional leadership and the rest of them do the lawless, foul things that they are doing and have been doing, unabated, to trash this country and institute the rule of men, of oligarchs, we do get closer to the day when lawlessness will rule the day, and blood will flow in the streets of America. Yes, kids, it can happen here, and everyone who thinks it can’t moves us that much closer to it happening.
It doesn’t matter that impeachment and conviction may not be possible because there aren’t enough votes. It is the duty of the House to bring the motion and open the debate. There is just cause to do so, certainly in the admitted criminal acts of the President, and in acts that can and should be tried to determine criminality. For the Democrats to fail to act makes them derelict in their duty to the country and to the Constitution. In the bedrock, bare bones of impeachment, the process exists to prevent civil bloodshed, to prevent the failure of the country, to preserve the rule of law, indeed, to prevent mobs from lynching Presidents.
To Ronald White: I know I’m being picky here, but it’s ELIZABETH Cady Stanton, not Barbara. I’m not just a proud Vermonter, but also a proud Unitarian Universalist as was Ms. Stanton.
Like I said, that’s picky stuff; the substance of your point to Rick92X is right on!
“Like I said, that’s picky stuff; the substance of your point to Rick92X is right on!”
This is a tough crowd, you’d better have your game face on before you get involved here! I’m not sure I can compete, but here goes.
I think sometimes Americans can get caught up in the “Group Think” delemna. Sometimes it takes one brave voice to speak up and break the silence to bring people to their senses. I pray that Vermont’s voice is heard lowd and clear in the rest of the country and people wake up and realize we’re being lied to and we don’t have to take it anymore.
GO VERMONT!!!
All the impeachment support comments above are right on — i’ve always been very impressed with the Green Mountain State, and if Dennis Kucinich *actually* introduces the Articles against Cheney this week — we’re going to be living in a slightly changed landscape. a whole new world, really. as our “favorite (P)resident” once said: “Let’s Roll.”
Rick92X:
I have been concerned about the impeachment movement because I felt it would suck the energy out of the investigations going on in the Congressional committees. However, every day that the Bush administration is in office, the horrendous damage that is being inflicted on the people of Iraq, on our military, on our reputation in the world, on our civil rights as citizens of this country… is being compounded. I want to express gratitude to the state of Vermont for doing what we all should be doing; that is, calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Bringing up impeachment hearings is most definitely not a waste of time. In fact, it is essential to remind those who would abuse their elected office that they will be held accountable. To brush it under the rug is a dumb idea.
It is also more than justified. There is a long list of abuse going back to the Supreme Court stopping the vote in Florida. The abuses have continued almost without a stop since. Remember, the government serves US the people, we don’t serve them. This will not give any reasonable person a cause to rally around, especially since the president’s ratings are so low. If I were in some way connected with Bush, I would be trying very hard to put as much distance between myself and George Bush as possible.
By extending your logic, it’s a quixotic adventure to warn children of the dangers of fire, or speaking with strangers because it’s going to happen sooner or later; so why waste the time?
Again, it’s the people who sit back and let government do what it pleases that bear much of the responsibility for the situation we are in. Martin Luther King equated silence with betrayal. To ignore impeachment would be a great betrayal to this country and the constitution.