GOP Downplaying Impeachment Vote

With less than two weeks before a possible full House vote on impeachment, Republican lawmakers are aggressively courting undecided colleagues by playing down the consequences if the historic measure passes, since the Senate is considered unlikely to remove President Clinton from office.

The message in GOP circles, one that may or may not sway votes, is that impeachment is no longer about sending Clinton packing. Instead, with the American people largely against Clinton’s ouster and a Senate conviction unlikely, key Republicans are portraying impeachment as an action tantamount to censure that demonstrates the House’s disapproval of the president’s actions without causing much disruption to democracy.

“The question for the House is not whether Clinton should be removed from office,” said Rep. George P. Radanovich (R-Mariposa), one of the lawmakers who assists House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in counting heads on key votes. “That’s an issue for the 100 senators.”

In a view growing more popular by the day, Radanovich argues that impeachment is a halfway step comparable to a grand jury sending a case to trial. “The House is not the judge,” he said in an interview. “The judge and the jury are the Senate.”

The effort to downplay impeachment caused fury at the White House.

“This isn’t a process where the House of Representatives can throw it to the Senate to let them deal with it,” said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. “This is members of the House of Representatives . . . taking a . . . [vote] that says the president should be removed from office [and] the will of the people should be overturned. And there’s been a serious lack of the constitutional solemnity” in the process.

In the argument over the meaning of impeachment, GOP lawmakers contend that they are adhering to the Constitution by stressing the different roles laid down by the Founding Fathers for the two chambers.

They also are saying that the Constitution does not permit passage of a presidential censure resolution, the compromise being pushed by some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

All the same, some onlookers said that they are unnerved by what they consider an attempt by impeachment advocates to portray the significance of the looming vote as trivial.

“People are backing away from the significance of what their vote is,” said UC Irvine political scientist Marc Petracca. “It really is a surrender of their responsibilities.”

Petracca added: “I don’t know if that strategy is going to play with the American public because the Republicans have set this up for the last 10 months as, ‘Our votes are votes that have to be cast on the basis of our belief that the president should be convicted,’ not, ‘Well, we’re not quite sure, but we think the Senate should take a look.’ ”

Rich Galen, a GOP strategist who worked for outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), said Friday in his regular memo to journalists: “The American public must understand that the impeachment vote in the House IS THE PUNISHMENT. It goes no farther. The Senate has to take it up, but it can be disposed of in a couple hours.”

Galen said that nobody truly expects Clinton to be forced from office.

“He can keep the house, the car and the driver for two more years,” Galen said. “But he WILL be only the second president in our history to have an impeachment resolution passed against him.”

A former GOP leadership aide made the same argument Friday as he sought to downplay the political fallout for GOP members who favor impeachment.

“It really is a free vote,” he said. “We’re saying we think the president has done something wrong. Although the American people have said they don’t want him removed from office, a vote to impeach will indicate the seriousness of the offenses without removing him from office.”

Expect to hear that argument from antsy GOP members with a hefty Democratic presence in their districts who are leaning toward voting “aye” on impeachment. Just how convincing the “impeachment light” notion becomes may determine the outcome of an issue that is now a nail-biter expected to hang on a handful of votes.

Lawmakers said that the strongest case for impeachment seems to be allegations of lying under oath, with the charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering far less solid.

DeLay, the chief House vote counter and an ardent Clinton critic, reached out to scores of lawmakers in three telephone conference calls Wednesday.

The goal, aides said, was to hear from the extensive network of lawmakers who make up his whip operation, not to influence them on what is officially being deemed a vote of conscience. The strong message that emerged from the calls was that members from throughout the country want the controversy to end quickly with an up or down vote.

“He wanted to hear our feelings as members of the whip team,” said Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), who is one of DeLay’s assistant whips and also holds an advisor post with Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston (R-La.). “I just want to get this over with and get on with our agenda in the next Congress. That’s what others were saying too.”

While DeLay did not strong-arm his colleagues, he did tell them that impeachment still has a possibility of passing. McKeon put the odds at 50-50.

The debate over the importance of impeachment broke out at Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing after Rep. George W. Gekas (R-Pa.) likened the House role to that of a criminal grand jury charged with determining whether there is probable cause that an offense occurred.

“That is what our duty is, to determine whether there’s enough evidence sufficient and credible to be able to present to the trier of fact [the Senate],” Gekas said. “That’s the only thing before us.”

Disputing that notion, Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) recalled the famous line that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor recommended as much.

“I call this . . . the ham sandwich theory of impeachment,” Meehan said. “We’re just a grand jury. We’re going to send it over to the Senate. Let them decide whether the president should be removed.”

Times staff writers Faye Fiore and Richard A. Serrano contributed to this story.

The House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings can be seen on The Times’ Web site at:

https://www.latimes.com/scandal