-Caveat Lector- from: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater Pro-impeachment ranks growing as House vote nears 12/14/98 06:29:02 PM By DAVID ESPO Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ranks of pro-impeachment Republicans swelled on Monday in the run-up to a momentous House vote, and one prominent moderate arranged a meeting with President Clinton to discuss the case against him. Vice President Al Gore accused the GOP of ignoring the ``wisdom of the American people'' by blocking censure. Dogged by the issue on a trip to the Middle East, Clinton said he was open to ``any reasonable compromise'' with Congress short of impeachment. But if anything, the shaky ground under the president appeared to soften further during the day. Two Northeast Republican lawmakers eyed by Clinton's defenders as potential opponents of impeachment announced their intention to vote the other way. And Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of a handful of anti-impeachment GOP lawmakers, said he was ``willing to reconsider'' his position and asked for a meeting with Clinton. But Clinton could take some comfort from Rep. Virgil Goode Jr., a Virginia Democrat who was widely assumed to be pro-impeachment but declined in an interview to say how he would vote. Goode said he continues to believe ``that false statements under oath after one has been warned that such statements are subject to perjury is an impeachable offense.'' The Associated Press conducted a telephone survey of House members, and 121 lawmakers said they would support impeachment, 151 said they would oppose it, 105 remained undecided, and 58 wouldn't answer or didn't return phone calls. The totals include members who said they were leaning toward a position. The developments came two days after the House Judiciary Committee completed work on four articles of impeachment alleging perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. All stem from evidence developed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who investigated Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky and efforts to keep it secret. The committee's votes, along party lines, set the stage for this week's holiday-season session of the House, which will convene Thursday for the first presidential impeachment vote in 130 years. Approval of a single article would lead to a Senate trial, the likes of which hasn't occurred since Andrew Johnson was president in 1868. A two-thirds vote of the Senate would be required to remove the president from office. Several congressional offices reported a heavy volume of calls from the public over the issue. In the Washington and Louisiana district offices of GOP Rep. W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, spokesman Ken Johnson estimated 1,500 phone calls during the day, and an additional 1,000 e-mails, faxes and letters to his boss, who remains uncommitted on impeachment. Clinton's fate in the House is likely to be settled on a close tally, and most attention has focused on moderate Republicans like Shays, a longtime opponent of impeachment. ``If I had to vote today I would vote against impeachment,'' he said in a telephone interview while traveling in his congressional district. But, he added, ``I don't have the same level of conviction I had a week ago. ... I'm willing to reconsider this issue,'' he said, noting that he has a meeting with constituents set for Tuesday night. Shays made it clear he has found Clinton's response to the issue disappointing, a reference to the president's fresh insistence that he did not lie, or commit perjury, in testimony to Starr's grand jury or in a civil deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. ``The president's comments both before he left and in Israel are very unsettling to me because it shows me he still doesn't get it, and he's so intent to avoid prosecution that he's willing to put this country in tremendous turmoil,'' said Shays. ``I think he needs to say that he did not tell the truth and in fact he lied, and say he's willing to face the court like any other American citizen and be held accountable for his actions'' after leaving office, the lawmaker added. Shays also called on the president to declare that he won't attempt to pardon himself and would ``oppose anyone else's pardon.'' Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for any crimes committed during Watergate, and Shays said he has been troubled by that action since it occurred in 1974. In response, the White House arranged a meeting for Shays with the president on Wednesday, after Clinton is back from his trip to Israel and Gaza. In addition, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the president ``will be available to deal with members (of Congress) if they believe that would be constructive and helpful.'' The comments by Shays, recently elected to his sixth term, weren't the only bad news for the White House. Reps. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey and Jim Walsh of New York, both of whom had been on Democratic-compiled lists of potential opponents of impeachment, said during the day they would instead vote in favor. ``I cannot in good conscience allow the nation's chief law enforcement officer to violate the law without consequence,'' said LoBiondo, who also said he believes there is ``clear and convincing evidence that the president broke the law.'' Walsh, recently elected to his sixth term from the Syracuse region, said in a statement he believed Clinton had lied under oath, though he acknowledged impeachment could lead to an ``unseemly public trial of the president. ... Weighing discomfort against the truth, the scales tip to the truth,'' he said. Also announcing plans to vote for impeachment were Republican Reps. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, Charles Bass of New Hampshire and Rick Hill of Montana. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., announced, as expected, he favors censure instead. In addition, several Republicans, speaking on condition of anonymity said they expect Indiana GOP Rep. Mark Souder to reverse positions and vote to impeach. The phone lines into Souder's offices in Washington and Indiana were busy, and no comment was available. Clinton has said several times in recent days he is open to a punishment, but he and his aides continued to argue that impeachment and a Senate trial would be damaging to the country's interests as well as his own. Gore, in comments to reporters, noted public sentiment favors censure, but the GOP leaders have thus far refused to agree to a vote on a lesser punishment. ``It is not in keeping with the wishes of the American people. It is not following the wisdom of the American people,'' he said. Lockhart was sharper in his criticism, saying Republicans were blocking a censure vote because they know it has a strong chance of passage. ``There is a small group of the Republican leadership who have made it their mission in life to remove the president against perhaps the will of the House but certainly against the will of the American public,'' he said. AP-CS-12-14-98 1925EST ============= http://www.msnbc.com/news/222150.asp MSNBC Is censure plus penalty a valid option? Constitution bars Congress from imposing penalties on individuals By Tom Curry MSNBC Dec. 14 — Now that President Bill Clinton has said that he would accept censure and with some in the House endorsing the idea of censure plus a fine, the question remains: Would it be legal? The Constitution explicitly forbids a penalty imposed by Congress on any designated individual without a trial. But if Clinton voluntarily accepted censure and a fine, the deal might pass constitutional muster. No matter how strong its language, a resolution of censure, may not appear commensurate with Clinton’s alleged offenses. Censure would be, after all, mere words. VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore on Monday added his voice to those calling for censure, contending the American people “have decided” that Clinton ought not be impeached and that the public overwhelmingly favors censure. But House members who believe that Clinton has committed serious —but perhaps not impeachable — offenses are snared in a dilemma. No matter how strong its language, a House resolution of censure, may not appear commensurate with Clinton’s alleged offenses. Censure would be, after all, mere words, with no greater legal effect than a House vote to declare next week National Crustacean Appreciation Week. The Congress passes such resolutions all the time and most Americans take no notice of them. But to impose a fine or other penalty to supplement the words of censure would run smack into Article I, section 9 of the Constitution, which says “no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.” BILL OF ATTAINDER PROHIBITED A bill of attainder is an act by Congress or other legislative body inflicting punishment on a designated person without a trial. “The legislature, all by itself, determines guilt and inflicts punishment upon an individual by name,” writes legal historian Zechariah Chafee in his definitive text on the practice. <Picture>NBC's David Bloom reports Wednesday on the latest poll figures and says that the White House is open to some form of punishment. In the 1600’s, bills of attainder were one of the most feared punishments of the British Parliament. The House of Commons, in its long power struggle with the monarchy, passed bills of attainder to punish advisers to the king. In 1641, for example, after an impeachment effort against the Earl of Strafford, King Charles’ chief adviser, failed in the House of Lords, the House of Commons passed a bill of attainder against Strafford finding him guilty of treason. He was beheaded before 200,000 spectators on Tower Hill in London. The authors of the Constitution were determined to provide some mechanism to remove high officials guilty of misconduct but chose impeachment, with its protections of a trial and the right to cross-examine witnesses, instead of bills of attainder, which would grant immense power to the legislative branch. MORE THAN A MERE RELIC But the bill of attainder is more than an archaic device found only in dusty archives of English history. In a hotly contested case argued in September before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., a lawyer for Bell South argued that the 1996 Telecommunications Act was a bill of attainder because it specifically names Bell companies for restrictions that do not apply to other telecom firms. Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe has endorsed censure as long it does not entail fines or penalties “Provided that Congress avoids enacting a bill of attainder, its affirmative powers support this compromise,” said Tribe. ‘Once you get into a penalty, then you get into the concept of a bill of attainder, which gets us into constitutional problems.’ — REP. JOHN CONYERS, D- MICH. Some Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee — who have rarely agreed on any issue during the impeachment inquiry — are in accord that censure-plus-penalty is unconstitutional. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Nov. 9, that “the constitutional question is, could we do anything beyond censure? Could we fine the president? Could we impose some sort of penalty on him? The dominant constitutional view on that is no, because that would be a bill of attainder, which the Constitution prohibits.” Ranking Committee Democrat John Conyers of Michigan agreed, saying that “once you get into a penalty, then you get into the concept of a bill of attainder, which gets us into constitutional problems.” FLOATING SCENARIOS At a Judiciary Committee hearing last week, former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste praised censure as “a device which is proportionate and appropriate to (Clinton’s) misconduct.” In September, Ben-Veniste said that censure plus a penalty “would be unconstitutional if it were not part of something to which all parties agreed,” implying that if Clinton and the House clinched such a deal, no constitutional question could arise. Yale Law School Professor Akhil Amar said that “a lot would depend on how the censure package were structured.” Were a congressional resolution put in conditional terms, such as: ”if the president pays a fine he will not be impeached,” then, said Amar, it would not be a bill of attainder. “As long as it doesn’t require him” to pay a fine or some other penalty, it passes constitutional muster, Amar said. For Clinton and Congress to make a censure/penalty deal in an informal way that was “not embedded any any law” would also not violate the Constitution’s ban on bills of attainder, Amar said. But if the language of the congressional resolution said that Clinton must pay a fine or penalty, then not only would it be a bill of attainder but it might violate Article II of the Constitution which says that a president’s compensation cannot be diminished during his term of office. VOLUNTARY PAYMENT? John McGinnis, professor of law at Cardozo School of Law in New York, argues that any deal in which the president voluntarily paid a fine into the Treasury would be a sham. ‘The voluntariness of the President’s payment would be a legal fiction. The President would be paying a fine under the shadow of impeachment.’ — PROF. JOHN MCGINNIS Cardozo School of Law “The voluntariness of the president’s payment would be a legal fiction,” McGinnis told the Judiciary Committee in November. “The president would be paying a fine under the shadow of impeachment. Congress would be using its impeachment powers as a club to impose a bill of attainder.” Such an act, he said, would create future perils. “This would represent a truly disastrous precedent,” McGinnis said. “Congress could then establish a schedule of legislative fines for the perceived offenses of other branches. Judges might even be required to pay fines for unpopular opinions on pain of impeachment.” IF NO ONE ELSE OBJECTS But if the person fined — Clinton — didn’t object to it, could any one else raise constitutional objections? No, argues McGinnis. Others who claimed that censure-plus-penalty was unconstitutional would have no legal standing to file a lawsuit challenging such a deal. The fact that censure-plus-penalty is even being discussed, says McGinnis, is one of the grievous consequence of Clinton’s misconduct. “He’s willing — or his friends are willing — to bargain away some of the core protections of the presidency,” he says. The opponents of impeachment, of course, see the issue differently. They are only trying to find a way to punish Clinton that goes beyond words and yet does not violate the Constitution. * * * * * Poll: Public Unmoved by Impeachment By Eun-Kyung Kim Associated Press Writer Monday, December 14, 1998; 6:56 p.m. EST WASHINGTON (AP) -- The impeachment debate that consumed Washington last week did little to change public opinion in the rest of the country, according to a new poll. The poll, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that two-thirds of American adults think Clinton should not be impeached and removed from office. More than half of those polled are unhappy with the way the president has handled the congressional investigation into his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, but 61 percent still approve of the job he is doing as president. They weren't as kind to Republicans. About 60 percent of respondents disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress have handled the impeachment issue. ----------------- A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, also released Monday, indicated that about six in 10 Americans opposed impeachment While they are down on the impeachment process, a strong majority of Americans are optimistic about their own lives, according to the Pew study. Seven in 10 people characterize 1998 as a good year for them personally and for American consumers. And six in 10 predicted 1999 would be even better. Other findings included: --71 percent said Republicans are pursuing impeachment for political reasons; 61 percent said Democrats are acting out of political motivation. --Only one in three Americans closely followed the impeachment story during last week's debate and the votes by the House Judiciary Committee. Nearly two-thirds said the media is paying too much attention to the issue. --Nearly 90 percent said protecting the Social Security system was very important for the country. Only 28 percent said the same about impeaching the president and removing him from office, putting it last among seven topics. The Pew poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,201 adults who were interviewed Dec. 9-13. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll was based on interviews with 865 adults on Dec. 12-13. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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