Let Barbara Jordan* inspire us now!
I was in Austin this past week, and on my arrival there, in the Barbara Jordan Passenger Terminal of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, was a beautiful statue of Barbara Jordan, and an essay depicting this remarkable woman's public service.
I was reminded of the powerfully eloquent way she addressed her fellow Congresspersons at a time of another Constitutional Crisis in our Country's history, at the time of Watergate.
But, whereas, Barbara Jordan and other Congressional representatives of both parties rose to that occasion, our current representatives are all too timid to raise their voices to any degree of certitude.
Certainly, it can be argued that this time of ours with an Executive branch run amok, goes even beyond the abuses of Watergate and warrants an even more vehement response. Does this indeed speak to the even greater crisis in which we find ourselves: that voices are silenced and intimidated? Witness the stampede of last weekend when the atrocious warrant-less wiretapping bill was allowed to be passed by an all too obsequious Congress, shaking in their boots or in a rush to run off to a vacation.
Just look at Barbara Jordan's clearheaded words:
"The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of this body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive. In establishing the division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same person.
We know the nature of impeachment. We have been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical and preservation of the independence of the Executive. The nature of impeachment is a narrowly channeled exception to the separation of powers maxim; the federal convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term, "maladministration." "It is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention: "We need one branch to check the others."
The North Carolina ratification convention: "No one need to be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity.""
http://www.watergate.info/impeachment/74 -07-25_barbara-jordan.shtml
Contrast the behavior of our current representatives with that of one of our great defenders of the Constitution, Barbara Jordan, yes, sadly of another era. How much have we lost with this truly repressive regime of the Bush Administration that so few are mustering the will to stop it in from further encroachments. Why didn't one senator last weekend stand up against the warrant-less wiretapping bill by filibustering against the Bush version of the bill?
As awful as Watergate was, we at least found a remedy then and were blessed to have had those who would stand up to the abuse of Unitary Executive(s) run amok.
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to be reminded of heroines and heroes past, especially of Barbara Jordan, who still can teach us so much we need to realize again today.
"A President Is Impeachable If He Attempts To Subvert The Constitution", Title of Argument in Congress, by Barbara Jordan, July 25, 1974
http://www.watergate.info/impeachment/74 -07-25_barbara-jordan.shtml
Karita Hummer
San Jose, CA
* Barbara Jordan, American Political Heroine
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