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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Big D who wrote (7813)	10/5/1998 8:21:00 PM
From: dd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

*** certify BigD as a bigot or idiot.*** That's okay Big D, just as long as they don't call you a liberal. :0)) dd

To: Big D who wrote (7813)	10/6/1998 2:08:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Since you're from Connecticut, maybe you remember this guy: New York Times October 5, 1998 Let the Process Go Forward By LOWELL WEICKER CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The House Judiciary Committee did the right thing Monday in voting for an investigation of President Clinton that could lead to impeachment hearings. Saying this does not mean I'm a partisan -- far from it. I often parted company with my Republican colleagues when I was in the Senate. In 1990, I left the party. I voted for, and publicly endorsed, Clinton twice. Still, I believe the committee is acting properly. It is too early to say whether the President should be impeached. It is not too early to say that the alternative -- censure -- would be a grave mistake. Having sat on the Senate Select Committee that investigated Richard Nixon 25 years ago, I fully appreciate the difficult decisions ahead. But censure is not an answer. It belongs to the autocratic nature of parliamentary government. In our democracy, issues -- including the fitness of candidates to serve -- are decided at election time. Overturning this electoral verdict should require the most extraordinary of precautions. That is precisely what the impeachment process in the Constitution demands. The Founding Fathers purposely set forth a complex procedure to determine the fitness of a President to continue in office. The Constitution requires decisions to be made first in the House and then in the Senate, with any Senate vote to impeach requiring a two-thirds majority. The Founders wanted to filter emotional or irrational considerations out of deliberations of a President's fitness to remain in office. That is why reason prevailed on the only two occasions when Presidents seriously faced removal by impeachment. In 1868, the House voted articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, but the Senate failed to convict him -- by one vote. In our own time, the threat of impeachment forced the resignation of Richard Nixon, who realized that the legislative and constitutional processes had established that he had violated the laws of the land. Censure, on the other hand, has no constitutional basis. The threshold for passing a censure resolution is far lower than that required for impeachment. Legally it resembles any other nonbinding Congressional resolution and therefore requires only a simple majority in one or both houses. The one time a President was censured -- Andrew Jackson in 1834 -- the resolution was passed by a vote of only 28 to 18. The vote had none of the authority of an impeachment vote. Censure also carries no enforceable sanction. On 1837, after Jackson's Democrats had won the Senate, they ordered black lines drawn around the resolution in the official record, with "Expunged by order of the Senate" superimposed. Thus did censure prove to be an empty, meaningless gesture. At the same time, in a highly charged political climate, censure could become a volatile new political instrument. Since it requires only a bare majority of votes, it could amount to an open invitation for political mischief to be visited on future Presidents whenever Congress disagrees with their policies. It could also backfire. What if Nixon's supporters in Congress had proposed letting him plea bargain for a censure? The imperial Presidency would have been here to stay. What if a President retaliated by issuing an executive order censuring a member of the House or Senate? For too long, Americans and their elected representatives have opted for soft landings on the toughest problems. And whenever a tough call has been required, it has been supplanted by a symbolic gesture. Censuring Clinton would be a gesture of this kind. What exactly would it mean? What sanctions would follow? What message would be sent? There is no choice now but to push ahead with impeachment hearings. Anything less will result in government by free-for-all. Lowell Weicker served as a Republican Senator from Connecticut from 1970 to 1988 and Independent Governor from 1990 to 1994. nytimes.com