Call your legislators RE: IMPEACHMENT!!!

[wndycty]

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=50&GA=94&DocTypeId=HJR&DocNum=125&GAID=8&LegID=25794&SpecSess=&Session=

HJ0125 LRB094 20306 RLC 58347 r



1 HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION


2 WHEREAS, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of
3 the United States House of Representatives allows federal
4 impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of
5 a state legislature; and

6 WHEREAS, President Bush has publicly admitted to ordering
7 the National Security Agency to violate provisions of the 1978
8 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a felony, specifically
9 authorizing the Agency to spy on American citizens without
10 warrant; and

11 WHEREAS, Evidence suggests that President Bush authorized
12 violation of the Torture Convention of the Geneva Conventions,
13 a treaty regarded a supreme law by the United States
14 Constitution; and

15 WHEREAS, The Bush Administration has held American
16 citizens and citizens of other nations as prisoners of war
17 without charge or trial; and

18 WHEREAS, Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration
19 has manipulated intelligence for the purpose of initiating a
20 war against the sovereign nation of Iraq, resulting in the
21 deaths of large numbers of Iraqi civilians and causing the
22 United States to incur loss of life, diminished security and
23 billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses; and

24 WHEREAS, The Bush Administration leaked classified
25 national secrets to further a political agenda, exposing an
26 unknown number of covert U. S. intelligence agents to potential
27 harm and retribution while simultaneously refusing to
28 investigate the matter; and

29 WHEREAS, The Republican-controlled Congress has declined

HJ0125 - 2 - LRB094 20306 RLC 58347 r

1 to fully investigate these charges to date; therefore, be it

2 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
3 NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE
4 SENATE CONCURRING HEREIN, that the General Assembly of the
5 State of Illinois has good cause to submit charges to the U. S.
6 House of Representatives under Section 603 that the President
7 of the United States has willfully violated his Oath of Office
8 to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
9 States; and be it further

10 RESOLVED, That George W. Bush, if found guilty of the
11 charges contained herein, should be removed from office and
12 disqualified to hold any other office in the United States.

[kevsand]

1. Wow.

(where's the emoticon for sucking air?) Damn straight. 'Bout time.

[wndycty]

4. Kev how well do you know the rules for the legislature. . .

. . .does a resolution need a simple majority or is it greater than that?

[kevsand]

5. According to Illinois House Rule 45 ("Resolutions"),

consideration of resolutions is essentially governed by the same rules as regular bills. There are some special purpose types of resolution (recognition, appropriations, etc.) that have special case exceptions or requirements, but resolutions calling for impeachment do not appear to be specifically mentioned anywhere in the House rules. My assumption therefore is that they are treated by the Illinois House rules just as any other joint resolution; that is, simple majority for passage.

[wndycty]

6. Does it have to go to the senate? Or does it just stay in the house?

Do you think this would get any downstate support. I can see all of the Black and Hispanic Caucuses supporting this bill and people like Barbara Flynn Currie and John Frichey supporting it, would Jay Hoffman support this?

[kevsand]

9. I didn't see anything specific in the House rules about

joint resolutions when I was reading them yesterday morning. (God that makes me sound like such a wonk...) Granted, I was skimming them pretty rapidly, but I would think that the language of the resolution itself implies that it needs to pass both bodies.

I'm not sure what Hoffman would do; I haven't been following him that closely lately. I do think that someone like Naomi Jakobsson might support it. She's caught a lot of flak this past year over her support of the whole pension/budget deal, and she might see this as a way to shore up her base, which has recently shifted very hard to the left in the wake of an extremely divisive county board primary in Urbana. She's facing what could best be described as a token Republican opponent this year, so she might think she's got nothing to lose by throwing some red meat to the liberal wing locally.

(edited to correct the spelling of Naomi's name)

[Bridget Dooley]

2. Wrote Roger Jenisch

I wrote to Roger Jenisch today, though I have my doubts that he would ever support this. He was pretty much just ousted by his own party, though. We might catch a little bit of disgruntled RJ looking to tick off his party. Should he have no future political ambitions, he may choose to go down in flames.

At any rate, it won't stop me from bugging him about it.

A big gigantic CHEERS to Carl Nyberg for intitiating this action, by the way.

[BillORightsMan]

3. AAR's Mike Malloy gave out the tinyurl

Yarbrough, Feigenholtz & Washington

No, I don't think they're a new law firm.
Maybe they might be...

http://www.tinyurl.com/nhs3r

Bill Status of HJR0125 - Illinois 94th General Assembly

Short Description: PRESIDENT BUSH-IMPEACHMENT

Synopsis As Introduced

Urges the General Assembly to submit charges to the U. S. House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States, George W. Bush, for willfully violating his Oath of Office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and if found guilty urges his removal from office and disqualification to hold any other office in the United States.

The IL House bill's sponsors are:

• Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough (Filed with the Clerk 4-20-06)
  
• Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (Added Co-Sponsor 4-21-06)
  
• Rep. Eddie Washington (Added Co-Sponsor 4-21-06)
  

Keep an eye on this one.

:patriot:

[il_lilac]

7. K&R!

This is way too important to let slip by. Call, write, demand accountability!

[ArkySue]

8. Good for Illinois!

:kick:

[Pierzin]

10. Hows the progress on this and Vermont& CA????

We can't let this go and cant quit talking about it.

[mopinko]

11. as it sits now-

the illinois resolution garner 20 co-sponsors before the end of the session. it is stuck in the rules committee, and if it can get out, it will likely be sent to the executive committee from there. no action can be taken until fall, but it can gain new sponsors, which, frankly is the only way it will ever see the light of day.
people are still working on it, and everyone is urged to dog their state reps, especially, but senators as well. some of the more progressive folks are hesitant to sign on, and need to have their feet held to the fire.

[mopinko]

12. barbara flynn currie

got word from someone on an email list that currie states that the measure is not legal. :shrug:

[GeneLivesNow]

13. Re: 6-11-06 Rally... vaguely related

Hi. I'm new here, but I don't intend to become a regular poster. In fact, the only reason I stopped lurking and registered was so I could ask this question, even though, as I know from all the other forums I'm a member of, it is really rude to make one post on an unrelated or tangentially related topic and then leave. But I don't have enough posts to start my own thread, and I think the DU community is my best shot at getting an answer.

All that said, if anyone is willing: I ran into a pro-Impeachment rally outside the Chicago Art Institute on June 11, 2006, and got into a brief conversation with an older man in attendence, who was holding a sign that said, among other Impeachment-related things, "200,000+ Iraqis Dead" (or something to that effect). I hadn't heard that and asked the man's source, and he referred me to Lancet and made several claims about revisions to the 100,000+ estimate Lancet originally made, claims which I have simply not been able to back up with Google. And, as you can guess, citing a guy on the street in Chicago hardly works in a debate (especially when you live in Minnesota, like me), so I'm trying to either get in contact with the rally organizer and find out to whom I was speaking, or find out from someone else where that 200,000 Iraqis figure might have come from and what I might have missed on Google about Iraq War casualties.

So, if that makes sense and anyone is still reading this post: Does anyone know anything that might help me out?

Thanks.