[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H2259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IMPEACHMENT: A POLITICAL REMEDY TO A POLITICAL PROBLEM

  (Mr. BARR of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, in reviewing what we can do with 
regard to activist Federal judges who usurp the authorities of the 
legislative or executive branches, I was impressed by an article 
written on March 20 in the Washington Times by Paul Craig Roberts who 
said, there is no clearer, sounder, and firmer grounds for impeachment 
of judges than the violation of the constitutional oath, and there is 
no clearer, sounder, or firmer evidence that this oath has been 
violated than when judges violate the separation of powers and usurp 
the political functions of government. This has been understood by 
everyone since the day the Constitution was written.
  As one professor noted, in the constitutional design of the Founding 
Fathers, especially Alexander Hamilton's discussion of the Federal 
judiciary in the Federalist Papers, the ultimate recourse in the event 
the judiciary usurps legislative powers is impeachment by Congress. 
This has been thoroughly understood in every period of our history.
  Writing in the Harvard Law Review in 1913, Wrisley Brown, whose 
investigation led to the impeachment of Judge Robert W. Archibald, said 
impeachment is a political remedy to a political problem. It is 
directed against a political offense, it culminates in a political 
judgment, it imposes a political forfeiture, it is a political remedy 
for the suppression of a political evil with wholly political 
consequences.

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