Blue States, Do Your Duty
Jan 25th, 2006 at 10:47 am by Susie
Oh, look! Our colleague Kagro X over at The Next Hurrah informs us articles of impeachment may be initiated by a state legislature:
And to be perfectly honest with you, this read at first like just another fringe-y, kooked-out misreading of procedure. But I just happen to have an old copy of Jefferson’s Manual here on the desk, and sure enough, that’s just what it says. The legislature of any state or territory may transmit charges to the Congress and recommend impeachment.
Now, to be sure, there is nothing that forces the House of Representatives — still the sole body capable of adopting actual articles of impeachment — to act on such charges. In fact, you can be assured that they’d do everything in their power to avoid doing so.
But what a story it’d make! A little known constitutional procedure that has lain dormant for decades, never before used against a president, and pitting the duly elected and sworn legislature of a state against a federal Congress sitting on its hands and refusing to act!
What drama! What passion!
So, where to start?
Well, clearly you’ll need to begin in a state with a strong Democratic majority in the legislature. That’s just plain fact. And while it may be complained that it puts an unduly partisan shine on things, the bottom line is that there really are no Republicans willing to consider their duty in this matter.
Frist !
This would be an interesting development. I hope one or more of the most promising states mentioned (Hawaii, Mass., RI, Vermont) takes this on.