[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 142 (Saturday, October 10, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2014-E2015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   AUTHORIZING THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY TO INVESTIGATE WHETHER 
   SUFFICIENT GROUNDS EXIST FOR THE IMPEACHMENT OF WILLIAM JEFFERSON 
                CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 8, 1998

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
the resolution presented by my colleague from Illinois, Mr. Hyde, to 
initiate an open ended, unlimited impeachment inquiry of the President 
of the United States of America.
  This resolution is an attempt to do through parliamentary means what 
could not be done in the last two elections: unseat the President of 
the United States of America.
  Let me state here on the floor of the House what most Americans 
already know.
  This inquiry is not about sexual indiscretion. We have allegations of 
Presidential sexual indiscretions, some going back 200 years and 
involving slave women who certainly had no defense against predatory 
relationships. But no such impeachment inquiry has been initiated 
before.
  This is not about lying. We have had allegations of Presidential 
lying about the trading of munitions for covert foreign aid and 
Presidential lying about personal federal income taxes. But no such 
impeachment inquiries were initiated in response.
  Mr. Speaker, there are some in this House who have campaigned for the 
impeachment of this President for more than six years. Their campaign, 
fueled by $40 million spent by the Office of Special Council, tens of 
millions spent by private sources, and millions more spent by assorted 
Congressional Committees, and the inevitable accompanying leaks have 
yielded us only a sad, sordid marital infidelity and an endless supply 
of headlines.
  These relentless campaign to impeach the President now hold their 
sponsors hostage to their own rhetoric. Having failed to find an 
impeachable offense, there is now relentless pressure to make do with 
the $60 million scandal--to make the scandal fit the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, our Constitution contains a number of examples of 
purposely ambiguous language in addition to the phrase ``high Crimes 
and Misdemeanors.'' Consider such language as ``due process.''
  It is precisely such elegant and flexible language which has enabled 
our democracy to develop, to encompass ever broader sectors of 
Americans, in ever deeper and more empowering ways.
  It is reasonable to expect that as the process of electing our chief 
executive has become more and more democratic, enfranchising more 
Americans, more and more directly, that the process for removing that 
chief executive, of undoing the will of the people, would demand higher 
and higher standards. It is reasonable to expect that the Congress 
should not take into itself the power to limit a President, in James 
Madison's words ``. . . to a tenure during the pleasure of the 
Senate.''
  When we ``dumb down'' the Constitution to meet the needs of partisan 
politics we inflict

[[Page E2015]]

deep and lasting harm on our political and Constitutional system. This 
is the real Constitutional crisis. I do not believe it is accidental 
that all of our nation's encounters with Presidential impeachment come 
following periods of great national turmoil--either the executive or 
legislative branch attempting to use extra-constitutional means of 
imposing its will on the policy of the nation. Like the attempt to 
impeach President Johnson in the wake of the Civil War and the debate 
over how to incorporate African Americans into the body politic or the 
attempt of President Nixon to undermine his political opponents in the 
closing days of the War in Vietnam; current attempts to undo the 
results of two Presidential elections will leave deep, lingering wounds 
on our nation, but, in the long run, will fail in their attempt to make 
an end run around the will of the people.
  Undoing our Constitution will not advance the search for solutions to 
the great national and international problems facing America: global 
economic crisis and growing economic inequality, the undoing of decades 
of struggle for racial equality in America: the resurgence of national 
strife around the world, the need to address fundamental problems in 
health care, education, environment and housing, preserving social 
security and a host of other critical issues.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this insidious attempt to use, or 
rather misuse, the power of impeachment.

                          ____________________