PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

This is the place for ideas for resolutions, suggested drafts and discussion on proposed resos for this committee.

Here is the resolution submitted by ADA/H in 2004. Still good.
Universal Healthcare Reso, ADA/H

Background document created by ADA/H
Basics of a Healthcare Security Act

Draft resolution based on PNHP doc, submitted by JE
Universal Healthcare Reso, JE

When crap like this happens, I wonder why I ever bother to submit testimony on bills. What is the point when legislators can and will change bills to suit their interests no matter what the public says?? A bill that would enact public financing of elections was amended, after all public hearings, to included a provision that would lift the corporate contribution cap to $25,000!!

Here is the deal: HB661 seemed to be the best chance yet for for Hawai‘i to get some sort of comprehensive public financing of elections enacted. From the official description:

Creates a pilot comprehensive public funding program for elections to the Hawaii county council in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

This bill had been left over from last year, when it passed in the House but wasn’t heard by the Senate. This year, the bill was revived and amended to apply only to Hawai‘i County Council races and passed both the JDL and WAM committees of the State Senate. It seemed that all was left was for it to go to conference committee, iron out a few minor differences between the House and Senate versions and then pass it on to the Governor’s desk. I was really hopeful that it was actually going to have a chance this time. Until this.

Yesterday, a “floor amendment” was offered and adopted by the Senate. The most significant part of this amendment comes in section 27 (amended text is underlined):

SECTION 27. Section 11-204, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

“(b) No person or any other entity shall make contributions to a noncandidate committee, in an aggregate amount greater than $1,000 in an election[.]; except that, in the case of a corporation or company using funds from its own treasury, a contribution by the corporation or company to its noncandidate committee shall not exceed $25,000 in an election. A corporation or company shall not contribute any funds directly to a candidate, candidate committee, or party.“

Anyone remember the “corporate cap” bill (SB2204) that lawmakers were trying to repeal? Well, after a significant amount of coverage and negative public sentiment , that bill failed to pass (StarBull: 2/27, 2/29, 3/1, 3/5; HonAd: 4/1). So rather than let the issue go for another year, they decided to just insert the language into another bill when the public wasn’t paying attention. That is just wrong.

So now we are left with a bill that would enact comprehensive public financing of elections, which I think is good, yet at the same time would lift the cap on corporate contributions to $25,000, which I think is bad. Beyond just the good/bad aspect… the original intent of the public financing bill was to create a system where a candidate doesn’t have to seek out large contributions at all, corporate or otherwise. So this amendment goes completely against the intent of the original bill. The bill that I thought merited enough importance that I actually took a vacation day from work so that I could go down to the capitol to testify on it.

Why should normal citizens like myself bother interrupting their normal work days to comment on legislation when legislators can do whatever they please with the bills anyway? It is very frustrating.

Larry Geller adds his thoughts on this matter on his blog here.

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has launched a campaign called “Healthcare Not Warfare“. Essentially the idea is to encourage people to speak out in droves, calling on our U.S. Congress to prioritize funding for healthcare, specifically by passing H.R. 676, rather than continuing to fund the war.

Coincidentally, this clever animation just reached my inbox via two different sources. It illustrates how money can gain you access to lawmakers while, “regular Bill” sits around waiting to be heard. In particular, he wants to reform the American healthcare system. Check it out.

http://www.wisdc.org/crock.php

There’s a long post over at DailyKos today by JedReport, summarizing many columns by Paul Krugman about John Edwards. It makes for a handy summary of the highlights of the Edwards campaign:

Paul Krugman gets John Edwards

by JedReport , Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 03:20:28 AM PST

Paul Krugman gets John Edwards, perhaps better than any other American journalist.

The more votes Edwards gets in the primaries, the more his positions will become reflected in the Democratic Party platform, regardless of who actually wins the primaries.

Of course, one could say the same for any of the candidates. But Krugman provides a lot of reasons to vote for Edwards. For the full story, follow the link.
Bob

On the same day as Kucinich was shaking things up on the floor of the house, the National Lawyers Guild held its national convention in Washington, D.C., and voted unanimously and enthusiastically for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney! Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

At their national convention, they voted unanimously and enthusiastically for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney! Their resolution lists more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush and Cheney administration and “calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, to investigate the charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, to vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney as provided in the Constitution of the United States of America.” According to their press release,

The resolution provides for an NLG Impeachment Committee open to all members that will help organize and coordinate events at the local, state, and national level to build public participation in the campaign to initiate impeachment investigation, impeachment, and removal of Bush and Cheney from office without further delay.

The resolution calls on all other state and national bar associations, state and local government bodies, community organizations, labor unions, and all other citizen associations to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office.

National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn said, “The war of aggression, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law.

The full text of the resolution (.pdf file) includes proposed articles of impeachment.

Bob

Dennis Kucinich today introduced a new resolution on the House Floor today, H.Res. 799, that was the same, in substance, as his previously submitted H.Res.333 to impeach VP Cheney, as previously planned (see previous posts on this thread.) Shortly afterwards, as anticipated, someone (in this case, Steny Hoyer) moved to table Kucinich’s resolution. Kucinich guessed that his resolution would be tabled, but thought it would be meaningful to see who voted which way.

At first, the voting rolled out as expected, with a majority in favor of tabling the motion. It seemed certain that the motion to table would succeed, as expected.
But then something odd started happening: a few Republicans started voting against tabling the resolution. Then the fog rolled in as Republicans who had voted for tabling started flipping their votes to against. A bunch of us were watching this happen, and couldn’t believe our eyes. You can see the play-by-play over at FireDogLake in the comments to Jane Hamsher’s blog, I’m With Donna Edwards, beginning at comment #24.

After five minutes or so, the Republican majority in favor of tabling dwindled down to 50/50, and then started to reverse! Then some Democratic votes started fllipping, too! Then, wonder of wonders, the “Nays” caught up to the “Ayes”, and the vote-flipping continued. Much to our surprise, the motion to Table, which would essentially have killed it, was defeated in a landslide! 78 Democrats voted against tabling the motion.
This unexpected victory for Kucinich was a mixed blessing, because it obscured his original objective of seeing who might vote against tabling as a clue to who might vote in favor of impeachment: With more than 90% of Republicans voting against tabling, there was obviously some other scheme afoot.

Hoyer then moved to refer Kucinich’s motion to the House Judiciary Committee, where Kucinich’s other bill, H. Res. 333, is currently languishing. Kucinich insisted on a recorded vote for that, too. Almost all Democrats voted in favor of referral, and almost all Republicans voted against referral. The Democrats won the vote to refer. This will probably kill it, as the Democrats don’t want impeachment proceedings to distract them from other Important Business. As for myself, I wonder what could be more important than impeaching a war-monger VEEP who wants to bomb the heck out of Iran because… well, the reasons change on a weekly basis, but the Bush-Cheney administration has portrayed Iran as a member of the “Axis of Evil”. There are also a bunch of other high crimes and misdemeanors to choose from.
Kucinich has also announced plans to introduce a resolution of impeachment of President Bush. Some of the charges to choose from can be found here, to which we can probably add his illegal orders authorizing water-boarding.

UPDATE: Kagro X has provided his summary of today’s Kucinich motion, OK, so did you get that?, at DailyKos.

UPDATE II: A live blog of the proceedings is posted at http://impeachcheney.org
Bob

This is a sequel to yesterday’s long blog,

Impeachment Kit for Kucinich Nov. 6 Action

David Swanson forwarded this account of Congressman Kucinich’s conference call this afternoon:

Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:25:17 -0500
From: David Swanson
Subject: [Activists] Kucinich to Move Impeachment of Bush After Cheney

Kucinich to Move Impeachment of Bush After Cheney

http://www.impeachcheney.org

By David Swanson

Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on a conference call Monday evening
that after moving to impeach Vice President Cheney on Tuesday he will
also introduce, at a future date, a resolution to impeach President
Bush. Or rather, he would have said that on the conference call if not
for several technical SNAFUs.

The call was advertised as a one-way call on which only Kucinich could
speak, but Kucinich was unable to get through because of the incredible
number of people on the call (I have no count yet, but the dings of the
new people coming on were a steady stream of noise for half an hour).

So Kucinich phoned me, and I held one of my phones up to another so that
everyone on the call could hear him. That was working fine for about 20
seconds, until the geniuses running the call chose that moment to mute
everyone except Dennis (without stopping to realize that by muting me
they were muting Dennis). So, Kucinich gave a nice speech through my
phones, but I was the only one listening.

Here’s what he said:

He is going to introduce a privileged resolution on the floor of the
U.S. House Tuesday morning to force a vote on his resolution to impeach
Cheney (H Res 333). While that bill includes offenses related to Iraq
and Iran, Kucinich plans to focus his remarks on Iran and the fact that
the current Pentagon bill includes funding to retrofit bombers to carry
15-ton bombs.

Kucinich said he would hold a press conference at 3 p.m. in 2456 Rayburn
House Office Building, Washington, D.C., and would post on his House
website and at http://impeachcheney.org an account of what transpired on
the floor.

He said that there might be an actual debate on the substance of the
charges, for which he said he was prepared, or there might be a motion
to table the matter (effectively killing it if successful), or it might
be referred to a committee. If it is sent to committee, Kucinich said,
it will be the House Judiciary Committee. I asked whether (as has been
done with impeachment resolutions in the past) he would be able to
insist on a time limit for the committee to report back. Kucinich seemed
unsure whether that could be done, but proposed that whether or not the
matter is sent to committee he might start a discharge petition as
another tool for forcing real action on the floor of the House.

Currently H Res 333 sits in the Constitution Subcommittee of the House
Judiciary Committee, where Chairman Jerrold Nadler has done nothing with
it for months.

Kucinich expressed great appreciation for what all the activist groups
and individuals on the call are doing to help promote impeachment. He
also wanted to let everyone know that he will not only continue pushing
for the impeachment of Cheney but will also take up the impeachment of
Bush with a new resolution.

This was terrific to hear. I wish I had not been the only one to hear it.

_______________________________________________

In addition to the conference call, you can read a transcript of Kucinich’s warm-up letter,

If you heard Keith Olberman’s Countdown tonight, you will welcome the idea that Kucinich will also be offering a resolution to impeach Bush, who is almost certainly guilty of the crime of authorizing torture. Bush’s nominee for AG apparently knows that, too, which led to much squirming in his seat as he was pelted with questions about waterboarding. The sophistry of his answers is revealing.

We must get our representatives to wake up, and do the right thing. If you have not already done so, review the action kit sent yesterday and do what you can. The next few days could be a critical turning point for the future of our country.

Mahalo nui loa,
Bob Schacht

The impeachment movement is about to get a major jolt!

First, a little review:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, the national impeachment committee of Progressive Democrats of America announced that

On Tuesday, October 23rd, in a nationwide phone call to impeach organizers presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich announced he will go before the U.S. House of Representatives on a point of personal privilege to move the impeachment of Dick Cheney.

Impeachment leader David Swanson then announced when this would take place:

Impeachment is coming to House floor on November 6th. Act now!

http://impeachcheney.org

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose bill to impeach Cheney has 22 sponsors, will introduce a resolution on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on November 6.

November 6th??? November 6th??? Isn’t that the date in even-numbered years that we hold elections? Hmmm. (more…)

Somewhat old news now, but I was interested to read this article in the Advertiser today. Remember the Akaka-Case US Senate race? Seems like so long ago… Case loved to point out how much more money the Akaka campaign had meanwhile the US Chamber of Commerce was spending a ton of money to help the Case campaign.

The chamber, which had endorsed Case, paid a telemarketing firm about $2,500 to make nearly 55,000 calls directing voters to a chamber Web site that favorably compared Case to Akaka on economic and small-business issues.

Well turns out they broke the law in doing so…

The FEC ruled this month that the chamber violated federal election law by using corporate money to advocate for Case and for failing to include language in the messages listing the chamber’s street address, telephone number or Web address, or stating that the calls were not authorized by Case.

But I guess this sort of thing is so commonplace and expected that it wasn’t worth more than a minor slap on the wrist.

The FEC chose not to take further action beyond admonishing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the relatively small amount of corporate money involved.

The Impeachment Coalition in Hawaii is alive!
We’ve joined with AfterDowningStreet.org to help

Impeach Bush and Cheney Now!

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

Please sign and help to promote this petition:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition

Join our Congressional District Impeachment Committee

by sending your request to bobschacht@infomagic.net.

Cities, Towns, States, and political parties are introducing and passing impeachment resolutions. Help us add to the growing list:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/resolutions

Would you like help learning about the legal issues? Research assistance? Assistance in putting together a forum or other impeachment event? Go here:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/resourcecenter

Meanwhile, you can attend the annual meeting of the Hawaii ACLU on November 3

[ph. (808) 522-5906], where there will be a breakout session on “Don’t Wait for ‘08: Restoring Checks and Balances on Presidential Power”, led by attorney and ACLU board member Roger Fonseca.

Bob Schacht