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House Judiciary members pass narrower version of fourth article on abuse of power, turns back censure option
Updated Dec. 13, 1998
10:05 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV) — Adhering tightly to its Republican members' agenda, the House Judiciary Committee Saturday passed a narrower version of the fourth and last article of impeachment against President Clinton and killed a censure resolution against the president.
One brief sign of bipartisanship appeared early in the day during a successful vote 29-5 to strike out several charges against the president. But brief it was, as committee members later voted 22-15 against a censure resolution.
And late Saturday, it appeared Republicans would not allow Democrats to resurrect censure as an option on the House floor.
The fourth article was trimmed after the passage of an amendment by Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., to strike down three of the four prongs of the fourth article of impeachment, including charges that Clinton abused his executive power, and made false statements to his cabinet and to the public on the Lewinsky matter. The amendment retained charges that the president gave false testimony in answers to the committee, and after some three hours of debate on Gekas' proposal and a lunch break, the final article was quickly passed along party lines, 21-16.
[ Read the amended text of the fourth article. ]
The passage of the fourth article was quickly followed by a bitter debate over the politically volatile censure option.
Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan told committee members: "This does, sometimes to some people, begin to take on the appearance of a coup."
Republicans did not appreciate Conyers' assessment.
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., told of having trouble sleeping. He said he had jogged at 2:30 a.m. down Washington's darkened, historic mall, stopping along the way at some of the Capital's most hallowed sites as he pondered the historic proceedings unfolding in the committee.
The censure debate was the first opportunity for the Democrats to make an affirmative argument during the hearings, and they strove to balance a sense of outrage at Clinton's acts — saying, for example, that he had "dishonored the office" of the presidency and noting that he remains subject to criminal prosecution after his term ends.
"It is the American public's preferred outcome," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. He added that while the president's "conduct was reprehensible, it did not threaten the nation" and does not warrant impeachment.
Republicans argued that the censure resolution amounted to little and was of doubtful constitutionality. But Democrats repeatedly argued that it should remain open to the House as an option.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., suggested to Republicans that if they did not want to vote for the censure option, they should abstain from voting against it so that the measure could go forward. Lofgren exercised that option herself earlier in the day on the amendment reducing the charges in the fourth article.
As it happened, the only member to exercise that option on censure was another Democrat, Maxine Waters of California. And another Democrat, Rep. Robert Scott of Virginia, voted against the censure option.
Republicans seemed to have no end of reasons to oppose the censure option. One pointed out by Rep. James Rogan of California was that such a motion, coming at the tail end of a Congress, would be difficult to revive next year and would be open to expungement from the record at any time in the future by a simple majority vote.
Such a move would "erase its signifcance, erase its longevity and erase its effects," Rogan said. "It means it never happened."
[ Read more about the committee's work Friday. ]
As for Gekas' amendment, the Pennsylvania Republican insisted his narrower version of the abuse-of-power charges did not absolve Clinton of the original allegations, but instead left them untouched by the committee.
"We should be, even though we are in the exercise of the impeachment power, reemphasizing the power of the Congress and the legislative branch," said Gekas, "we ought to while were doing that, set down in history that we revere the office of the presidency."
"I believe that we should very gently probe around the edges of executive privilege no matter what we do as members of Congress," he added.
As for the fourth charge in the article, which accuses Clinton of making "perjurious, false and misleading sworn statements" in his 81 responses to questions posed by the Judiciary Committee, Gekas said he wouldn't budge.
"We feel just as strongly about leaving in number four as we do deleting numbers one through three," Gekas said.
While Democrats acknowledged the Republicans' attempt to ratchet down the severity of the charges, they weren't buying Gekas' arguments.
"He moves it not from the sublime to the ridiculous, but from the very ridiculous to the ridiculous," said Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "This is not a game. This is serious stuff."
In an echo of Democrats' complaints earlier in the week, Schumer blasted Republicans for suggesting such an amendment without giving details about which of Clinton's responses were false. But committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., quickly responded to Schumer's demand for specifics and ticked off 10 of Clinton's responses which Republicans considered at issue.
Some Democrats, such as Howard Berman of California, questioned the Republicans' sudden decision to modify the fourth article, which had been considered to have the weakest prospects for passage, and suggested that Gekas might might simply be trying to weaken the fourth article so the Republicans could quietly kill it.
"You minimize my persuasive powers," retorted Gekas. Berman eventually voted for the amendment.
Larger impact of impeachment debated
But the discussion soon took a quick turn from the specifics of the fourth article to the virtues and effects of impeachment. Republicans took issue with Democratic arguments that impeachment would be an ultimate punishment for Clinton, noting that impeachment was a preliminary step in removing the president from office.
Any vote for impeachment in the House "does not, cannot and never will remove a president from office," said Georgia Republican Bob Barr, one of the most consistently outspoken critics of the president. "Impeachment is not removal from office."
Even liberal Democrats found themselves agreeing with Barr and other conservatives on the committee. But they castigated their Republican counterparts for suggesting that impeachment alone, with no expectation of a conviction in a Senate trial, could serve as a punishment.
"We've got work to do to teach our members on the other side of the aisle what the Constitution really is," said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca.
Instead of using impeachment as "the ultimate censure," suggested Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., censure itself should function as a means of punishment short of Clinton's removal from office.
"For the American people to believe that impeachment really isn't impeachment, it just doesn't wash," said Meehan. "Let's see if you really want to vote for censure."
In a marked change from the committee's prior work, 29 members from both sides supported the amendment. The dissent was bipartisan as well, as Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, Robert Wexler and Tom Barrett, as well as Utah Republican Chris Cannon opposed it. Massachusetts Democrats Martin Meehan and Barney Frank abstained from voting, along with Lofgren.
White House decries partisan nature of process
The White House decried the passage of the impeachment articles and pointed out the partisan nature of the votes on all four articles.
"Nothing about this process has been fair. Nothing about this
process has been bipartisan," said White House special counsel Gregory Craig. "And nothing about this process has won the confidence of the American people.
The Republican majority on the committee was primarily responsible for the passage of the first three articles, which charged Clinton with perjury before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury, perjury in the Paula Jones case and seven specific instances of obstruction of justice.
The first perjury article — for the president's grand jury testimony — and the obstruction article were passed along a solid party-line vote, 21-16. A lone Republican, Rep. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, broke ranks and voted against the Jones perjury charge for a 20-17 vote.
Passage of articles follows Clinton apology
Saturday's session came after yet another statement of contrition by the president, who spoke during a brief if solemn Rose Garden appearance Friday afternoon and not only apologized once more for his conduct, but acknowledged he would be amenable to censure by the House.
"Like anyone who honestly faces the shame of wrongful conduct, I would give anything to go back and undo what I did," Clinton said. "But one of the painful truths I have to live with is the reality that that is simply not possible."
[ Read the text of Clinton's speech. ]
Minutes later, the committee passed the first impeachment article against him.
Though the censure proposal was headed for defeat in the committee, Democrats and the White House are pushing Republican leaders for a vote in the full House. It is possible the House Rules Committee, which would normally have to approve such an item before the full House could take it up, could convene in advance of next Thursday's scheduled vote on the impeachment articles.
Options for censure vote
Democrats could also try and bring the censure motion directly to the floor, though the House rules make it almost impossible to do so. And even if censure passes in the Judiciary Committee, House Republicans can fall back on procedural rules to keep it from coming to the House floor, according to one Democratic staff member on the Rules committee.
Incoming House Speaker Bob Livingston made that point as well in a letter to Hyde late Saturday, as he pointed out that the GOP would likely not support censure, and that it would be procedurally difficult to bring a censure resolution to the House floor.
Moreover, censure would have to be approved by the Senate early next year before it could be sent to the president for approval. Impeachment, if approved by the House, would be effective immediately, though it does not call for any immediate change in the president's duties.
Livingston's comments seemed to contradict his views earleier Saturday, when he seemed undecided about letting a censure option come up for consideration.
"Frankly we haven't decided yet," Livingston said, adding that he would wait to see the final report of the Judiciary Committee before making his own decision.
Livingston said he doubted Clinton's latest apology would change many lawmakers' minds. Hoping to sway the incoming Speaker's views, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt sent Livingston a letter Saturday urging him to allow a censure option to come to the House floor.
"The inevitable result of a process that limits members' ability to vote their conscience on impeachment and an alternative will most certainly result in a bitterly divided House," wrote Gephardt.
The House is set to convene next Thursday, with moderate Republicans still holding the balance of power to determine whether the case goes to the Senate for trial and the president's possible removal from office.
Court TV's Jon Bonné and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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