San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is not the first local government body to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, nor will it be the last.
But because San Francisco is one of America’s best-known and best-loved cities –unless you’re Fox News bloviator Bill O’Reilly, who last fall went on air to suggest landmarks there that terrorists might want to strike — the news has drawn wider attention to the burgeoning movement for impeachment. It has also exposed another embarrassing rift between top Democrats and grassroots party activists and elected officials around the country.
Tuesday’s 7-3 vote by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors for Democratic Supervisor Chris Daly’s resolution urging California’s Congressional representatives to pursue impeachment pushed no new limits. The bill of particulars discussed by Daly and other supervisors echoed concerns raised by U.S. Representative John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and the 26 House members currently cosponsoring Conyers’ call for creation of a select committee to investigate administration preparations for war with Iraq before obtaining congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouragement and countenancing of torture, and retaliation against critics. That committee would be charged with, among other things, making recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
While a number of Bay Area representatives are among the cosponsors of the Conyers resolution — including Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey — the most powerful member of the House from region, and the primary representative of the city of San Francisco, is not on board. Indeed, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seems to be almost as frightened by the word “impeachment” as the right-wing talk radio hosts who doth protest too much whenever it is mentioned.
Pelosi was confronted at a January town hall meeting in San Francisco by constituents who detailed administration misdeeds and chanted: “Impeach! Impeach!” Her response, according to a San Francisco Bay Guardian report, was initially a political one: “For those of you concerned about these issues, I urge you to channel your energies into the 2006 elections,” she told the crowd.
Pressed on whether she would join senior Democrats in the California delegation — such as Pete Stark and Maxine Waters — in backing the House resolution to investigate matters related to impeachment, Pelosi answered that, “I do not intend to support Mr. Conyers’s resolution.”
Seeking to quiet the ensuing chorus of boos, Pelosi said, “We have a responsibility to try to bring this country together.” According to Guardian report, one of the San Franciscans in the audience shouted back, “You have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution!”
That response is no longer just a shout from the crowd. It has been endorsed by the board of supervisors of the city Pelosi supposedly represents.
