Former Democratic congresswoman and New York City comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman outlined four charges against the Bush administration yesterday which, she said, constitute grounds for President Bush's impeachment.
Holtzman, who represented New York's 16th district from 1973 to 1981, argued against the president in her lecture, "George W. Bush: High Crimes and Misdemeanors?" to a crowded Dodds Auditorium.
Her charges against Bush included wiretapping U.S. citizens without a warrant, lying to the American people in the months prior to the war in Iraq, denying Geneva Convention protections to "enemy combatants" in the war on terror and failing to properly mobilize relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Drawing on arguments from her book coauthored with Cynthia Cooper, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush," Holtzman argued that each of these charges represented a "great and serious crime, which subverts the Constitution."
Holtzman, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment hearings, drew parallels between Bush's violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the attempted wiretappings at the Watergate Hotel, which led to the impeachment of President Nixon.
Though the Democratic Party's leadership has repeatedly stated that it will not attempt to remove the president from office, Holtzman stressed the urgency of impeachment as a matter of precedent.
"What I want to get at least this audience to [consider is]: If we allow this president [to wiretap without a warrant], what will the next president do?" she said. "And where will we draw the line?"
Holtzman stated that she doesn't "agree that impeachment should become common parlance in our political system," though she stressed that impeachment is "still important and should be given consideration."
She said the institution of impeachment is essential to ensure that presidential power does not go unchecked. "The Constitution says that the president has to take care that the laws are faithfully executed," Holtzman said. "We can't have a system where the president says 'I'm above the law, catch me if you can.' "
Holtzman stressed that the impetus for impeachment will have to come from citizens rather than elected officials. "It was not Congress that started the impeachment of President Nixon. It was the American people," she said. "I guarantee you, if members of Congress heard from their constituents on this subject, there would be a very different response."
When asked how students could spur the impeachment process, Holtzman urged them to contact their government representatives. "Write to your congressperson, write to your local assemblyperson, state senator," she said. "People can make a difference."
The audience included about a dozen members of New Jersey groups lobbying for Bush's impeachment, including the North Jersey Impeach Group. "Altogether in the state there's over 300 people working on impeachment," North Jersey Impeach Group head Stuart Hutchison said in an interview after the lecture.
"New Jersey will be the seventh state to introduce a resolution to impeach," he said. "We think we will be the first state to actually pass it through the entire legislature ... and the pressure is going to be enormous not only on the Congress at large, but in particular, on the New Jersey congressional delegation."
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