[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 29, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9184-H9185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
     A CHALLENGE TO AMERICA, RECOGNIZE THE FREEDOM IN WHICH WE LIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burr of North Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-
Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in less than a week the 
Committee on the Judiciary, of which I am a member, on October 5 will 
convene for what I believe will be an important hearing.
  I thought it was important this morning, in light of the press 
conference yesterday of the chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hyde), to try to not only clarify for myself but to articulate some of 
the views of those of us who are Democrats juxtaposed against the 
chairman's remarks yesterday.
  This committee now has a task that for many is not a pleasant task. 
It is not a pleasant time for America or Americans. It is a somber time 
and a highly serious commitment on all of our parts, for the concept of 
impeachment goes to the very infrastructure of this Nation.
  As I reflected on the will of the Founding Fathers in their design of 
article 2, section 4, the impeachment provision, I now more than ever 
understood their thoughts. This fledgling nation they wanted to 
survive. How well they do, that in 1998, we live in a free nation, a 
sovereign nation, that respects the First Amendment and certain rights 
under the Bill of Rights, such as the Fifth Amendment of due process.
  The Founding Fathers were immediate immigrants from desperate 
nations, or nations with monarchies. I believe what they said, that we 
will have a nation that elects, where the head of government is not a 
monarchy and we will have a right as a people to elect that person but 
as well we will have a right to remove that person.
  At the same time, I would simply say that they did not want this 
process to be frivolous and without meaning. Nor did they give us any 
fine definition.
  High crimes and misdemeanors, many may think of the word high as very 
important. If one reads further one might find that it is high, meaning 
against the crown. So, in fact, they did leave the definition of high 
crimes and misdemeanors to the ongoing time frame of when we might find 
it.
  So in 1974, as the Nixon proceedings moved forward, we found that the 
Republicans, who were then in the minority, decided that high crimes 
had to be a commitment of a crime and as well it had to be against the 
government, for obviously Mr. Nixon was of the Republican Party.
  We now have had 6 days of hearings in the Committee on the Judiciary. 
None of them have been on the issue of defining what high crimes and 
misdemeanors might portend to be in 1998. We have spent a lot of time 
playing to the public opinion, the media blitz. We have spent a lot of 
time releasing documents that most Americans thought were sacred 
because they were part of a grand jury system.

[[Page H9185]]

  The Office of Independent Counsel uses the grand jury system. It is a 
system that any one of us could be using by way of the process in local 
communities, where by some unfortunate circumstances one is arrested 
and there is a grand jury proceeding and then possibly a trial, that 
grand jury documentation is never released to the public. In fact, Mr. 
Timothy McVeigh, well-known for the allegations and charges and then 
conviction of bombing the Oklahoma building, 168 people dead, none of 
the grand jury testimony in that proceeding was ever released.
  So when this is played out in the public arena, it looks as if we 
have strident Democrats, some say political hacks, and the white-hat-
wearing Republicans who want the people to know everything.
  I do not want to be either, and this process by the Founding Fathers 
was not made to be any of that. It was given to us in trust because we 
are the representatives of the people. The President is elected by the 
people. Yet in this Committee on the Judiciary we cannot get a 
unanimous vote on accepting the Fifth Amendment as a guiding principle 
of what we would be doing; the rights of the accused to protect them in 
their life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
  The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hyde), says that the President in his guiding principles 
is not above the law, and I say he is absolutely right, but he is not 
below the law as well. He said he would be guided by the letter and the 
spirit of the constitution and yet in this hybrid process he has 
released willy-nilly the proceedings of the grand jury testimony.
  We have a very important responsibility. It is frivolous, Mr. 
Speaker, that we would think in 2 days we can make a decision on an 
impeachment inquiry.
  My challenge to America is to recognize the freedom in which we live 
and that democracy will only be preserved if we preserve it in the 
Committee on the Judiciary and treat everyone fairly.

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