There is no question that Congress is complicit in these constitutional violations. We do not believe, however, that congressional complicity exonerates the Executive Branch from impeachment for crimes against the constitution as this argument suggests. In fact, congressional complicity only means that in addition to seeking the impeachment of the renegade Executive, we should also develop a strategy for holding congressional "enablers" responsible. For example, we could encourage a campaign to vote out such Congressmembers as was the implicit policy (see the quote of Charles J. Morgan, Jr. above) of the ACLU during the Nixon impeachment.
2. Pursuing impeachment will let Congress divert attention away from its complicity in permitting these impeachable offenses.
The fact is that with today's well-behaved national ACLU, Congress is not suffering any adverse consequences as an accomplice to Bush and Cheney crimes. In reality, little or no serious attention is being paid to congressional enabling.
The ACLU's current policy is, for all practical purposes, impunity for both the White House and the Congress. An aggressive strategy targeting both the Executive and the Legislative Branches would allow us to pursue impeachment of the former while pursuing the "roll-back" of unconstitutional legislation in the latter.
3. Impeachment is largely a symbolic act since Congress refuses to take up the issue and "the votes are not there."
The issue of impeachment is yet to be sponsored by a major organization like the ACLU, so it remains to be seen whether or not such a policy would be symbolic. However, it does appear that the ACLU's current "Safe and Free" Campaign has turned out to be a less-than-symbolic act. Under the "Safe and Free" Campaign, Congress has retroactively legitimized many Bush and Cheney's offenses against the Constitution, which of course has made all of us much less safe and free. The terrible results of this campaign merit revisiting our national strategy and considering a more principled, if not more audacious, approach such as impeachment.
4. Focus on impeachment would divert attention away from the national ACLU's approach of removing unconstitutional policies piecemeal.
Please refer to the comments above. It is also important to mention that we are not proposing an "either/or" approach. We are free to work on a new and improved "Safe and Free" Campaign targeting Congress while simultaneously working on impeachment.
5. Even if impeachment were successful, the unconstitutional policies would remain in place;
Many of the safeguards undone by the Bush Administration were safeguards passed by Congress in the wake of Watergate, which marked our country's last major constitutional crisis. At that time, the impeachment drive led to a substantial number of secondary initiatives designed to safeguard our rights and liberties. A successful impeachment drive today would have the desired effect of turning all Bush and Cheney initiatives into substances so toxic and radioactive that nobody would support them. This effect, in turn, would facilitate the rollback in unconstitutional policies that we would be pursuing simultaneously with the impeachment initiative.
6. The ACLU's current strategy to fix unconstitutional policies has largely failed ("Over the past ten months the organization has poured resources into this fight, believing that a new Democratic majority would be willing to address these issues. Thus far we have been sorely disappointed.")
We couldn't agree more, but we are also sorely disappointed that the decision has been made to continue with the failed "Safe and Free" Campaign without considering more vigorous alternatives like impeachment.
Let's Practice What We Preach – and Vote to Impeach
Once again, we believe that the ACLU's support or lack thereof for this crucial topic should depend on the answer to a single question of principle: have George Bush and Richard Cheney committed and do they continue to commit several grave constitutional offenses that merit impeachment? Our purpose in this proposal has been to persuade you, our fellow chapter colleagues, that this is the predominant question to be asked when considering support for impeachment. We sincerely hope that you will join us in persuading our state organization that we must convince our national organization to make a vigorous call for the House of Representatives to support impeachment proceedings.
Sincerely,
The Central Florida State Board
2. Pursuing impeachment will let Congress divert attention away from its complicity in permitting these impeachable offenses.
The fact is that with today's well-behaved national ACLU, Congress is not suffering any adverse consequences as an accomplice to Bush and Cheney crimes. In reality, little or no serious attention is being paid to congressional enabling.
The ACLU's current policy is, for all practical purposes, impunity for both the White House and the Congress. An aggressive strategy targeting both the Executive and the Legislative Branches would allow us to pursue impeachment of the former while pursuing the "roll-back" of unconstitutional legislation in the latter.
3. Impeachment is largely a symbolic act since Congress refuses to take up the issue and "the votes are not there."
4. Focus on impeachment would divert attention away from the national ACLU's approach of removing unconstitutional policies piecemeal.
Please refer to the comments above. It is also important to mention that we are not proposing an "either/or" approach. We are free to work on a new and improved "Safe and Free" Campaign targeting Congress while simultaneously working on impeachment.
5. Even if impeachment were successful, the unconstitutional policies would remain in place;
Many of the safeguards undone by the Bush Administration were safeguards passed by Congress in the wake of Watergate, which marked our country's last major constitutional crisis. At that time, the impeachment drive led to a substantial number of secondary initiatives designed to safeguard our rights and liberties. A successful impeachment drive today would have the desired effect of turning all Bush and Cheney initiatives into substances so toxic and radioactive that nobody would support them. This effect, in turn, would facilitate the rollback in unconstitutional policies that we would be pursuing simultaneously with the impeachment initiative.
6. The ACLU's current strategy to fix unconstitutional policies has largely failed ("Over the past ten months the organization has poured resources into this fight, believing that a new Democratic majority would be willing to address these issues. Thus far we have been sorely disappointed.")
We couldn't agree more, but we are also sorely disappointed that the decision has been made to continue with the failed "Safe and Free" Campaign without considering more vigorous alternatives like impeachment.
Let's Practice What We Preach – and Vote to Impeach
Once again, we believe that the ACLU's support or lack thereof for this crucial topic should depend on the answer to a single question of principle: have George Bush and Richard Cheney committed and do they continue to commit several grave constitutional offenses that merit impeachment? Our purpose in this proposal has been to persuade you, our fellow chapter colleagues, that this is the predominant question to be asked when considering support for impeachment. We sincerely hope that you will join us in persuading our state organization that we must convince our national organization to make a vigorous call for the House of Representatives to support impeachment proceedings.
Sincerely,
The Central Florida State Board
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