Impeachment -- a bad idea for Democrats -- June 6, 2019 column

Here's my column of June 6, 2019. Posting belatedly as I was out of town.

By MARSHA MERCER

California Democrats at a state party convention Saturday chanted “Impeach! Impeach!” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was making a speech. 

“We will go where the facts lead us,” Pelosi said, trying to reassure the crowd. “President Trump will be held accountable for his actions – in the Congress, in the courts, and in the court of public opinion.”

But when?

“We can’t wait,” a coalition of progressive groups declared Tuesday. The groups wrote Pelosi to express “deep disappointment and concern” she hasn’t gotten on with impeachment.

“In the very near future, the Trump era will be one that evokes the question – what did you do? We urge you to use your power to lead and to stop asking us to wait,” the letter from CREDO Action and about two dozen other groups said.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 did not exonerate Trump, as he and his allies claim.

“If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that,” Mueller said last month in his only public remarks on the report.

But Mueller’s team also did not recommend the Justice Department make a case against Trump.

“Under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office . . . Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller explained.

To many Democrats, it seemed Mueller was inviting Congress to hold Trump accountable.

The Constitution says the president may be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” but leaves what constitutes an impeachable offense to the House.

Impeachment starts in the House, but removing a president from office then requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. That, as Pelosi has said, will require a compelling case -- with facts.

It’s a heavy lift. No president has ever been removed from office.

For his part, Trump calls impeachment “dirty, filthy, disgusting” and is stonewalling House requests for testimony or documents by White House aides.

Meanwhile, 11 of the more than 20 Democratic presidential candidates have expressed “full-throated support” for immediate impeachment proceedings, according to HuffPost, which keeps a running list.

Joe Biden has not jumped on the impeachment bandwagon, but after Mueller spoke, 

Biden’s campaign said impeachment “may be unavoidable.”

Nearly 60 House Democrats from true-blue districts support opening an impeachment inquiry.

But even 60 members are less than one quarter of the 235 Democrats in the House. 

Many centrist Democratic representatives from swing districts either haven’t decided or won’t say whether they support impeachment.   

They and Pelosi recognize something many on the left ignore: Democrats could impeach Trump and make liberals feel good – and the Republican-controlled Senate likely would leave Trump in office.

Were he to remain in office, as Bill Clinton did after his impeachment, Trump likely would emerge stronger for 2020, his followers more motivated to re-elect him.

A stickier problem for Democrats is most Americans oppose Trump’s impeachment and removal, according to polls.

Among registered voters overall, 54 percent oppose while only 41 percent favor impeachment and removal, the latest CNN poll reported Sunday.

While 76 percent Democrats say yes, only 35 percent of independents and 6 percent of Republicans want to see Trump impeached and removed.   

House Democratic leaders may be moving too slowly for the party’s liberal base, but they risk alienating the 65 percent of voters who say Trump already has faced more investigations than any previous president.

On Monday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, will open a series of hearings into the Mueller report. These are not impeachment hearings but could lead to them.

So far, only one Republican supports impeachment -- Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a libertarian.

We don’t know what facts Democratic investigations may turn up that could change minds. But here are two more numbers from the CNN poll to keep in mind: While 93 percent of Republicans oppose Trump’s impeachment and removal, so do 59 percent of independents.

Without the latter on board, impeachment and removal don’t stand a chance.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Pelosi quashes I-word -- for now -- March 14, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The front-page headline in the New York Post blared: “PELOSI BLINKS.”

A smaller one read: “`He’s just not worth it,’ says speaker.”

He, of course, is President Donald Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made headlines Tuesday when she said, “I’m not for impeachment.”

Did she blink? Hardly.

Pelosi has been playing down impeachment talk since she became speaker, urging Democrats to wait for various investigations to yield hard evidence before rushing to impeach.  

Her comments made news because the interview with Joe Heim in The Washington Post Magazine, published Monday, was the first time she stated her position so succinctly to a reporter.

Some in Trump’s camp evidently felt comforted by Pelosi’s comments.

“I’m glad she sees what the rest of us see, that there is no reason, no cause for impeachment,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Fox News, typically mischaracterizing what Pelosi said.

Trump, taking the role of victim, cries harassment and calls all investigations a witch hunt.

No one should labor under the delusion Pelosi is giving Trump a Get out of Jail Free card.

Asked if Trump is fit to be president, she said no, he is “ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit.”

Pelosi wants Trump out, but the canny strategist wants to oust him the old-fashioned way – through the electoral process.

She also wants Democrats to retain control of the House and regain the Senate. The last may be wishful thinking, but none of her goals has a prayer if Democrats lose sight of their policy agenda and alienate a wide swath of the electorate, especially 

independent and moderate voters in swing districts.

Impeachment would draw attention away from such Democratic goals as reducing prescription drug costs and ending gender discrimination in the workplace.

So Pelosi has slowed the impeachment train, although some congressional Democrats, like Rep. Al Green of Texas, who first introduced an articles of impeachment resolution in January 2017, and some House freshmen vow to continue their efforts.

Pelosi’s statement provides political cover for Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, and other Democratic chairmen who face pressure to impeach.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who reportedly plans to spend $40 million in the 2020 election cycle to get Trump impeached, has run ads in Nadler’s and others’ districts, urging them to get on with it.

Nadler launched a sweeping investigation into possible wrongdoing by Trump and has said he believes Trump has committed obstruction of justice. But Nadler said he needs to gather evidence.

The constitutional grounds for impeachment are not whether one finds the president personally odious or his policies wrong-headed. The grounds are “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

It takes time to build a case and the necessary public support for such a wrenching take-down. President Richard Nixon held on and did not resign until Republican congressional leaders broke the bad news that he was about to be impeached. 

Voting to impeach Trump prematurely would be the political equivalent of downing a large piece of chocolate lava cake while dieting – delicious in the moment but ultimately a self-defeating indulgence.

The reality is even if the House were to vote to impeach Trump, a trial in the Senate would not remove him from office, not at this point with a GOP majority, and failed impeachment could redound to the benefit of Republicans.

Pelosi was in the House when Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton, failed in the Senate to remove him from office – and lost seats in the next election.    

Pelosi did leave the door ajar for impeachment of Trump someday, but said it’s so divisive it should be avoided “unless there’s something so compelling and bipartisan.”

Compelling and bipartisan are good standards. There’s also a question of timing. 

Unless impeachment proceedings take place this year, 2020 may be too late. Impeachment proceedings would take over the campaign and incite Trump voters.   

Pelosi likes to quote Lincoln: “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”

If Democrats want to succeed, they should listen to and trust the experienced Nancy Pelosi.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

In God we trust -- Congress? Not so much -- Nov. 3, 2011 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The numbers are stunning to everyone, it seems, except Congress.

Fourteen million Americans are still jobless. The ranks of the poorest of the poor have grown to record levels, with 20.5 million Americans living below 50 percent of the poverty line.

And what does Congress do? It, um, steps up to the plate and strikes out.
On Oct. 26, the House voted 416 to 3 to mint commemorative baseball coins.

Rep. Richard Hanna, R-NY, who calls himself “the congressman from Cooperstown,” introduced the measure. If the Senate goes along, sales of the coins will support the National Baseball Hall of Fame there.

Thank goodness, the coins will have “In God We Trust” on them – as all American money does.

The House is mightily concerned that some people – that means you, Mister President – don’t know “In God We Trust” is the national motto. More on that in a minute.

First, another number Congress evidently is in denial about. Only 9 percent of American adults approve of the job Congress is doing – the worst performance rating in the history of CBS-New York Times polls.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The day after the 2010 elections delivered the House to the Republicans, the new Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., set higher accountability standards he called the Cantor Rule.

Each day, Cantor said, he’d ask himself: “Are my efforts addressing job creation and the economy; are they reducing spending; and are they shrinking the size of the federal government while increasing and protecting liberty? If not, why am I doing it? Why are WE doing it?”

And yet, the House voted 396 to 6 Tuesday to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as our official motto and to encourage “public display of the motto in all public buildings, schools and other government institutions.”

Cantor didn’t comment, but sponsor, Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., said it was necessary because, “Unfortunately, there are a number of public officials who forget what the national motto is, whether intentionally or unintentionally.”

He was referring to Obama who, in a speech last year to students in Jakarta, Indonesia, said, “In the United States, our motto is `E Pluribus Unum,’ out of many, one.”

John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson proposed the Latin phrase for the motto on the Great Shield of the United States in 1776. E pluribus unum is a wonderful concept, speaking to the challenge of forging one, unified country from many different peoples.

Congress and President Dwight Eisenhower made “In God We Trust” the official motto in 1956.

Forbes, who founded the congressional Prayer Caucus, wrote Obama a letter, informing the president of his motto mistake and scolding him for failing to acknowledge God as the source of the rights in the Declaration of Independence.

“Omitting the word Creator once was a mistake; but twice establishes a pattern,” Forbes wrote. Forty-one members of the Prayer Caucus, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., now a presidential contender, joined in signing the letter.

Forbes then introduced the “In God We Trust” resolution. Not that it was needed. Congress has reaffirmed the motto repeatedly over the years.

Nobody is against the motto, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, said during House debate.

“Why have my Republican friends returned to an irrelevant agenda? Irrelevant because it does nothing. It simply restates existing law that no one has questioned. Why are we debating nonbinding resolutions about the national motto?” Nadler asked.

The short answer is that Republicans want to make Obama a one-term president. Democrats could hardly let Republicans out-do them on trust in God. And so the House showed overwhelming bipartisanship on a meaningless bill.

Obama meanwhile keeps pushing for his jobs bill. He gets knocked for his travels, but at least he has a bill.

On Wednesday, Obama stood near the structurally deficient Key Bridge in Washington to talk about infrastructure jobs. Nationwide, one in four bridges in the country is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the U.S. Transportation Department.

“In the House of Representatives, what have you guys been debating?” Obama said. “You’ve been debating a commemorative coin for baseball. You had legislation reaffirming that `In God We Trust’ is our motto. That’s not putting people back to work. I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work,” he said.

I agree. Our national motto wasn’t at risk; our bridges are. I want to see people at work, making the bridges safe.

c) 2011 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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