Open Letter to my Santa Barbara Representative to Congress, Lois Capps (D)

“MRS CAPPS, WHY WON’T YOU SUPPORT IMPEACHMENT PROCESS AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY?”
AN OPEN LETTER TO U.S. Rep. Lois CAPPS, Sept. 26, 2007 —
Dear Mrs. Capps,
Recently I’ve been getting numerous emails from you and your office. One of them offered an online survey to rate how you and this Democratic 110th Congress are doing. Like many of your constituents, I dare to predict, I rated this Congress’s performance as “poor.” And today the national approval rating for this Congress hovers around a very low 22%.
Mrs. Capps, I’ve voted for you in every Congressional election. I’ve supported your generally effective representation in the House, and you have been a “good” representative for us living in Santa Barbara. However, like Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, you seem to be unaware that this President ignores you, and actually scorns your third branch of the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress. Only direct and constitutional action by Congress will control our incompetent and belligerent leaders. Even the initiation of the simple process of impeachment proceedings against Mr. Bush and V.P. Cheney will hamper these neo-imperialists from lashing out at some other country. Iran of course immediately comes to mind.
In response to my email, you have declined to cosponsor a House bill that would begin a path to impeachment proceedings. In a recent email to me you wrote, “I believe Speaker Pelosi is acting in what she believes is the best long term interests of our country… I have decided to respect the Speaker's decision on this issue and not cosponsor any impeachment legislation at this time.”
I believe you read polls which indicate that more and more Americans have gotten resigned to the war issue, and that they’re waiting for the Nov. 2008 elections to deliver us a new president. But you and the Democratic majority have been elected to pull our army out of Iraq now, and to constrain Mr. Bush for the rest of his 16 months in office. You also wrote me how you “completely share that frustration” most of us have with our continuing bloody occupation of Iraq. Yet you remain opposed to beginning the impeachment process, which can only start in your House of Representatives, according to the U.S. Constitution.
As our representative, many Santa Barbarans and I look to you for moral as well as political leadership. The people want their army out of Iraq, and our military leaders are telling us we’re wearing out the armed forces. It’s cruel to ask our brave soldiers to make THREE deployments to Iraq, and extend the third tour to 15 months!
I am dismayed that you and most of the Democrats, including most of the contenders for the presidential nomination, are deceiving the American people with an anti-war sham. You, and the new Democratic majority in the 110th Congress, were clearly elected to get us out of our odious occupation of Iraq.
Like most Americans, I don’t care about the “200 hearings” you Democrats have held about the “quagmire” of Iraq. As the co-equal third branch of government the Constitution assigns you the task to “balance” the power of the executive branch. Your only effective tool to constrain this President and his bellicose Vice President is the wholly legal and measured move to begin impeaching him in the House now. Mrs. Capps, I beg you to reconsider your decision NOT to cosponsor impeachment proceedings. American constitutional democracy requires a separation and balance of powers, but our current executive branch is wildly out of control, and may well strike militarily at Iran without Congressional approval. Only Congress is given the power to declare war on another country (U.S. Constitution, Article 1).
Without the check of impeachment, the useless killings will go on uncontested, and our soldiers will continue to die for political considerations at home. This is a failure of our constitutional democracy. I hope you will reconsider your refusal to act directly against the illegal war policies of this imperial executive branch by supporting the impeachment process.