Action Plan: Cheney Impeachment Resolution

The Democratic Activist
(Note: this post has been updated, here.)

Of the 38 members of the House Judiciary Committee (HJC), 23 are Democrats, 15 are Republicans.

The Dems on the HJC voted to support the resolution 14 to 9. That's 61% of the Dems on the committee -- a MUCH higher percentage than among all House Dems (that's encouraging).

However, we still need 6 more Dems to have a majority of committee members who will vote to move H. Res. 799 (the new version of H. Res. 333, the original Cheney impeachment resolution introduced by Kucinich back in April that's now before the HJC) through the committee process and on the full House.

So, our job is to convert 6 of 9 recalcitrant Dems on the committee.

Here's a list of the Dems on the HJC, showing how they who voted to on the motion to table the Cheney impeachment resolution (a "Nay" vote indicates support for the resolution; a "Yea" vote indicates opposition to it; those Democratic reps who voted "Yea," against the resolution, are in bold, and are the ones we need to concentrate on):

---

Adam B. Schiff - (D) California, 29th
Yea

Anthony D. Weiner - (D) New York, 9th
Nay

Artur Davis - (D) Alabama , 7th
Yea

Betty Sutton - (D) Ohio, 13th
Nay

Brad Sherman - (D) California, 27
Nay

Debbie Wasserman Schultz - (D) Florida, 20th
Yea

Hank Johnson - (D) Georgia, 4th
Nay

Howard L. Berman - (D) California, 28th
Yea

Jerrold Nadler - (D) New York, 8th
Yea

John Conyers, Jr. - (D) Michigan, 14th
Nay

Keith Ellison - (D) Minnesota, 5th
Nay

Linda T. Sánchez - (D) California, 39th
Yea

Luis Gutierrez - (D) Illinois, 4th
Nay

Maxine Waters - (D) California, 35th
Nay

Melvin L. Watt - (D) North Carolina, 12th
Nay

Rick Boucher - (D) Virginia, 9th
Yea

Robert C. Scott - (D) Virginia, 3rd
Nay

Robert Wexler - (D) Florida, 19th
Nay

Sheila Jackson Lee - (D) Texas, 18th
Nay

Steve Cohen - (D) Tennessee, 9th
Nay

Tammy Baldwin - (D) Wisconsin, 2nd
Nay

William D. Delahunt - (D) Massachusetts, 10th
Yea

Zoe Lofgren - (D) California, 16th
Yea

---

Action Plan:

The easiest way to do contact congressional representatives (in the House or Senate) is to call the Capitol Switchboard toll-free at:
1-800-828-0498, and ask to speak to the office of a particular congressperson or senator.

Here's what you can do:

1. Contact House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (either by calling the Capitol Switchboard number below, or by calling his Washington D.C. office number: 202-225-5126), expressing support for Cheney impeachment resolution H. Res. 799 and demanding that Congressman Conyers make passing this resolution the committee's top priority, hold a hearing on the resolution as quickly as possible, and work hard to swiftly move the resolution out of committee and on to full debate and consideration by the entire House.

2. Contact each Democratic member of the HJC who voted "Yea" to table H. Res. 799 in opposition to the Cheney impeachment resolution (names in bold in list of Democratic committee members, above), express your own ardent support of the resolution, and insist that recalcitrant Democrats on the committee fully and enthusiastically support the resolution and its quick passage to full debate and consideration by the entire House (you might also want to contact all the "Nay" voters to applaud them for their support of the Cheney impeachment resolution, and the office of Rep. Dennis Kucinich to thank him for his courage and commitment in authoring and presenting the resolution to congress).

3. Contact House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Steny Hoyer (call the Capitol Switchboard number, above) to express your support of the Cheney impeachment resolution and demand that they obey the will of a solid majority of Americans and the vast majority of Democrats to immediately impeach Dick Cheney, to put impeachment back on the table where it belongs, and to energetically work as leaders of the Democratic Party to see that Cheney and other criminals in the currently administration are removed from office and held fully accountable before the law.

4. Contact your own representative in the House (click here to find your representative's name and web site), express your fervent support of the Cheney impeachment resolution, urge him or her to co-sponsor the resolution to impeach Dick Cheney, and ask him or her to lobby members of the HJC to work hard to advance the resolution swiftly through the committee and on to the full House.

5. Contact national mass-media outlets and request full coverage of this important news story (click here to go to a page listing addresses, phone numbers, and live email links to major U.S. news outlets).

Afterdowningstreet.org has their own action page (click here) with additional ideas and ways to further the cause of impeachment.

Be creative!

Add to this list of action items by including your own ideas and links in comments to this post, so others can benefit from them.

---

Carrying out the full action plan above requires that you make 12 short phone calls.

12 calls to the Capitol Switchboard takes about 15 minutes. Committed individuals could easily do it on their lunch break, using their cell phones (not at all a difficult or onerous task, for those who really care). In addition, you can quickly and easily send email messages to your congressperson and senators, Speaker Pelosi, the HJC, and a letter to your nearest daily newspaper in support of the Cheney impeachment resolution by clicking here.

Activists should implement the action plan each day, till the resolution is moved to a hearing, and until we get public commitments to support the Cheney impeachment resolution from HJC Chairman John Conyers and at least 6 more Dems on the HJC.

Direct action is only half the battle, though. The other half is enrolling others in the fight.

In addition to making these critically important calls yourself, it is VERY IMPORTANT that activists email a link to this page and the information it contains to as many people as possible, with an short explanation of the crucial issue at hand and a request for their own active involvement at this critical time.

Letters to representatives are also extremely effective, more so even than phone calls ... though they do, of course, take more time to generate and mail. Please consider writing a short letter template, and then printing out and mailing a separate copy of your letter to each of the HJC members who voted "Yea" to table H. Res. 799 (for mailing addresses, click here to go to the HJC main page, then click on a member's name to go to that representative's web site and contact page). Make clear your unequivocal support for Cheney's impeachment, and that your continued support of the Democratic Party, financially and otherwise, depends on Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee acting speedily and decisively to move the Cheney impeachment resolution through the committee to the full House.

Although most House members only accept email messages sent through the contact page of their web sites from zip codes within their home districts, HJC Chairman John Conyers can be contacted directly via email at the following address:

John.Conyers@mail.house.gov

Letters to Chairman Conyers can be addressed to:

Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

Click here to read the text of the Cheney impeachment resolution, and here to view supporting documents.

Dick Cheney, in addition to conceiving and committing the high crimes outlined in the impeachment resolution, is the man most responsible for the insane plan to attack Iran, probably timed to occur next spring or summer, before the election ... which Republicans fear they're otherwise almost sure to lose.

Are the American people ready for another outrageous, ridiculous, felonious, wasteful war based on greed, deceit, and power-madness?

Are we as a people and as individuals willing to lose America to a budding dictatorship, risk the advent of WW3, and ignore the most fundamental principles of American democracy ... by leaving criminals like this in office one day longer?

This is it. We actually have a real chance to impeach Dick Cheney.

It's now, or never. Time to move. It will take work. But we can do it.

Please forward this information to as many people as possible, make calls and send letters yourself, and urge others to do the same.

(Click here to read the update to this post.)

Thank you.

Pass it on.
The Democratic Activist