A Strange Idea

Well, Democrats want to get the President one way or another:

State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) has sponsored a resolution calling on the General Assembly to submit charges to the U.S. House so its lawmakers could begin impeachment proceedings.

It would be the first state legislature to pass such a resolution, though the measure faces a dim future in a Republican-controlled Congress.

Hat tip: RedState

Apparently, the legislators believe that they can use Jefferson's A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which is a document that even me the uber-political science geek am not familiar with. Since the manual is apparently a supplement to the House rules, the Illinois legislators think they have a window.

I can only imagine what the backlash would have been had a legislator in Idaho, Montana, or Nebraska (for example) had attempted to do something similar to President Clinton.

The fact of the matter is that this is just a waste of everybody's time. I think given the recent conviction of former Governor Ryan, Illinois has problems much more important, complex, and locally relevant than impeaching the President. If Democrats want to complete that this President has done more posturing than leading, how do they think stunts like these look to your average voter.

Furthermore, the use of this provision could have disastrous consequences. If Illinois is successful with their charge, that opens up not only the President to charges of impeachment, but every member of Congress, every federal judge, every federal official would be potentially subjected to impeachment investigations instigated by the states. It would be the tyranny of the minority: I am sure that there are legislators in Maryland that would go forth and waste the peoples' time and money on a frivolous impeachment attempts.

The bottom line is that this idea is a bad one for the sake of our system of government and of our political sanity. But the Democrats need to realize that President Bush is in office for another thirty-two months; they better learn how to deal with it in a civilized manner, or else they will never be able to make political gains.