See this node:

http://www.democrats.com/node/11110

On Saturday, April 7, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (HI-01) met with a joint gathering convened by Americans for Democratic Action (Hawaii) and Progressive Democrats of Hawaii. About 35 people attended, including the parents of Ehren Watada. The meeting began with an informal discussion before Rep. Abercrombie’s arrival. When he arrived, with Amy Asselbaye, his Chief of Staff, and his pet dog, on behalf of the assembly I welcomed him and gave him his first question. The question drew on a speech by Al Gore in January 2006 and an article in the Washington Post this month which said, in effect, that as a result of actions by President Bush’s administration, the Constitution was in grave danger, and asked whether he was willing to endorse Gore’s call for

1. A Special Prosecutor to investigate what many believe are serious violations of law by the President, and
2. Both Houses of Congress should hold comprehensive– and not just superficial– hearings into these serious allegations of criminal behavior on the part of the President, and should follow the evidence wherever it leads.

And if not, why not?

Finally, he was asked what he was doing to protect the Constitution against this danger.

There followed a long and vigorous discussion, with many participants. My impression was that

• Abercrombie said that he would vote for a motion to impeach, if it came to the floor. However, he didn’t think that it would happen.
• He also thought there weren’t enough votes in the Senate to find Bush guilty.
• He thought that there were more important things to do, and worried about the House getting tied up in knots debating impeachment.
• At one point, he defended the Democratic congress, pointing out how much had been accomplished in only 3 months, and that aggressive investigations were under way against the President’s misdeeds.

Not all the questions were about impeachment, but that was the main focus. After the Q & A had gone on for an hour, I was getting signals from Amy that we had 5 minutes more, but the questions were still coming fast and furious passionate, so when I tried to wrap things up, Rep. Abercrombie brushed aside the concern over time, and continued to respond to questions for another 20 minutes or so, and then stayed afterwards for about 15 minutes talking to individuals, including the Watadas, before leaving.

This meeting will not be the last word, but hopefully the beginning of an ongoing dialogue with Rep. Abercrombie. We are grateful for his attention, and for being so generous with his time!

As always, stay tuned to our blog at http://pd-hawaii.com/blog/category/ships-platform/impeach/ for local perspectives on impeachment. Feel free to leave a comment to any of the blogs you see there!

If you would like to be added to my mailing list about impeachment actions, please let me know.

Mahalo nui,
Bob Schacht
CDIC-01 organizer

Today (August 18, 2007) Reps. Abercrombie and Hirono met with their constituents at events organized by the Democratic Party of Hawaii. I went to the first hour of Mazie’s meeting, at the Kaneohe YWCA. The meeting was co-hosted by “Windward Women,” and they did not want any impeachment bumperstickers or petitions or even flyers about Democratic positions on impeachment. Outside, however, I was greeted by friends who accepted my flier on the Constitutional crisis we’re in, and some signed an impeachment petition that I brought. There were about 30 people in attendance, and it seemed like I knew about half of them.

In her initial remarks, Mazie brought up impeachment herself, dismissing it on the grounds that we didn’t have the votes. I had to leave after she answered the first question, under the impression that I needed the time to get to Rep. Abercrombie’s event. But I heard that impeachment questions were raised by a number of other locals.

Abercrombie’s event was publicized as 1:00 PM, but was supposed to be 1:30 PM. Unfortunately, although arrangements had been made in advance to open a room at Washington Middle School, no custodian appeared to let us in. We had to hold the meeting outdoors in one of the school’s courtyards. Perhaps 40-50 people were present, as well as a camera man for ‘Olelo. There to greet us were people from NION/WCW wearing orange –er, peach–colored shirts and ribbons (peach, as in imPEACH). They and some of their friends had signs on orange peach-colored paper with large “IMPEACH” letters on one side, and “NO STRYKER” on the other side. They also had their large banner with 3-foot letters spelling IMPEACH, which were held up behind Abercrombie for the first half of the event, once it got started.

Abercrombie began by summarizing information from his latest newsletter, but he took note early on about the signs in evidence all around. I’ll focus my report here on his remarks about impeachment. First, he acknowledged the record level of passionate discontent about Bush. He said that he had been reading up on previous presidents who faced high levels of discontent, and he said that he’d found nothing comparable to current levels. He also recommended the impeachment special recently on Bill Moyers’ Journal. And later on, he admitted that he thinks both Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable offenses, and that the Constitution has been trampled on. But he cited 3 problems with impeachment:

1. Impeachment of both Bush and Cheney is criticized as a plot to make Democrat Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, President. This fits in with the accusation that impeachment is just a vendetta by Democrats.
2. Politically, it “can’t be done” because “we don’t have the votes,” and it would “paralyze Congress.” [I’ve heard this so many times from Democrats that it must be a Standard Official Democrat Talking Point.]
3. The Presidential nomination process has become accelerated and pushed earlier than ever before. The idea of conducting an impeachment process at the same time as a Presidential campaign is unprecedented and unthinkable. [This is the first time I’ve heard this one.]

But Abercrombie did mention a few new (to me) elements. First, he said that the Democratic leadership was looking for ways to “peel” Republicans away from the solid Republican block, but so far without much luck. The implication was that if they could figure out how to peal off a few more votes, impeachment would be back on the table.

The second thing that he said was that the logic of the 3 points above do NOT apply to Gonzales! However, he did not elaborate on this.

One questioner pressed Abercrombie on the ethics and morality of NOT initiating impeachment proceedings, in view of their trampling on the Constitution. I think this is where Abercrombie admitted that the Constitution had been trampled on, but he was defensive (sorry, I don’t remember exactly what he said.) Either here or shortly before or after, Abercrombie asserted that he was indeed fulfilling his oath of office (i.e., to defend the Constitution), but I don’t recall that he explained this claim. He referred to his “Hot Seat” answer in the Advertiser as still representing his position.

There were more questions on impeachment, including one by the ‘Olelo cameraman, but I have no further notes.