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Talking Points for State Legislatures and City Councils

Updated 2/26/07                      PRINTABLE

• When they say "It is not our job to impeach the President."
• When they say "This is not a local issue."
• When they say "Impeachment will take time away from other legislation."
• When they say "Impeachment will hurt the anti-war effort."
• When they say "Impeachment is off the table."

When they say, "It is not our job to impeach the President."

1. Most City Council members take an oath of office promising to "protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. They don't take an oath to fix potholes. If the Constitution is in danger then their primary duty is to defend it. If it is safe, and they have time on their hands, then they can fix potholes. (You might be able to state this more diplomatically.)
2. Cities and towns routinely send petitions to Congress for all kinds of requests. This is allowed under Clause 3, Rule XII, Section 819, of the Rules of the House of Representatives. This clause is routinely used to accept petitions from cities, and memorials from states, all across America. As an example, here is a page from the Congressional Record showing petitions and memorials laid on the Clerk's desk on March 6th, 2006.

When they say, "This is not a local issue. "

1. If a federal action has a significant negative impact on this city, then it is appropriate for this city to defend itself.
2. Citizens from this city may be sent, or have been sent, to Iraq to fight in an illegal and unjustified war.
3. Tax funds from this city that could have been spent locally have been spent in Iraq for war. Tax money from this city has been wasted in no-bid contracts with companies like Halliburton with deep ties to the Bush administration. Yet this city can barely afford the emergency services, libraries, and schools that we need. [CostOfWar.com website has more details.]
4. The state National Guard should be available to protect this city from floods, hurricanes, earthquakes or other disasters. But instead they have been sent to Iraq by President Bush.

When they say, "Impeachment will take time away from other legislation."

1. The impeachment of Clinton only took four months, two in the House and two in the Senate.
2. Not every Congressperson has to be involved with impeachment the whole time. Most of the investigations and even the trial can take place in small committees.
3. There is no issue more important than protecting the Constitution. Our system of government does not work when the Constitution is undermined. "Defending the Constitution" is required by the oath of office.
4. If Bush is in office then he might use signing statements to nullify the effect of new laws like he did with McCain's anti-torture amendment.
5. Congress cannot make informed decisions if Bush continues to mislead them. A diplomat at the IAEA recently said that most of the information provided by Bush about Iran's nuclear program "has turned out to be incorrect".
6. While Congress works on minimum wage laws, the White House is spying on millions of Americans, torturing thousands of people, sending more US troops to die in Iraq, and building a case for a war with Iran. Impeachment will hopefully take time away from Bush committing more crimes.

When they say, "Impeachment will hurt the anti-war effort."

1. Bush is an obstacle to peace and will block any efforts to stop the war. So he must be impeached before any real progress can be made.
2. An investigation of Bush and Iraq will doubtless reveal many things about the Iraq war that are now secret. These will strengthen the case against the war.
3. We cannot get out of Iraq until we understand why we are there. The reasons stated by Bush were false so we need an investigation to determine the true reasons.
4. Iraq is now a complete mess. We cannot expect Bush who lied to get us into Iraq and who has completely bungled the operation of the war to be able to lead us out of Iraq in an intelligent way.
5. If we don't stop Bush he may start a catastrophic war with Iran. Bush is positioning forces near Iran and making claims about Iran that are eerily similar to Iraq. General Pace has questioned the administrations claims about Iran.

When they say "Impeachment is off the table."

1. Impeachment is provided by the Constitution as mechanism for protecting against abuse of power by a President. As long as the Constitution is valid then impeachment will be "on the table" as a possible remedy .
2. We do not know what national political considerations led Pelosi to say this. But at the local level this is not our concern. We are not deciding to impeach. We are deciding whether to ask for impeachment based solely on whether we feel impeachable offenses have been committed that affect us locally.
3. The public is demanding impeachment and the will of the public is never off the table. Passing legislation calling for impeachment is simply answering a request from one's constituents.

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