The party's central committee voted overwhelmingly to begin a campaign it hopes will take the issue to the U.S. House of Representatives, which has the authority to impeach justices.

The resolution passed Sunday by the 66 Oregon party activists called for the ``immediate investigation of the behavior'' of the five justices who voted to stop hand recounts of Florida ballots.

The decision gave Bush the majority of electoral votes and the presidency. Then-Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote.

The justices who voted to stop the hand recounts were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.

``This is the first organized effort to advocate impeachment of five justices,'' said former Rep. Charles Porter, 82, who first raised the issue with Lane County Democrats and then convinced the state party to adopt the resolution.

Porter accused the five of ``egregiously bad behavior, high crimes and misdemeanors.''

Neel Pender, executive director of Oregon's Democratic Party, said party officials would ask its congressional delegation to begin investigating the matter. The delegation has four Democratic House members and one Democratic senator.

Neither the delegation or national Democratic Party officials had any immediate comment.

There has been no response yet from the high court on the Oregon move, but the justices have defended the December ruling. Recently, Thomas told a conference in St. Louis that any suggestion of partisanship in the decision was wrong.

``I think one of the ways our process is cheapened and trivialized is when it's suggested we have a way to make decisions that have more to do with politics,'' Thomas said.

Oregon has long been known as a maverick state in U.S. politics. It was the home of some of the earliest official opposition to the Vietnam War and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won 5 percent of the vote in the 2000 election.

Only one justice has been impeached. In 1805, Samuel Chase, survived a Senate trial after he was impeached on charges of discriminating against supporters of Thomas Jefferson.

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited

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