County Faces the Great Divide on Impeachment

Ventura County’s congressmen remained divided on impeachment Friday, as did their constituents around the county.

During the House of Representatives’ all-day debate Friday preceding today’s floor votes, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) told House members that if President Clinton is not impeached for perjury, the nation’s legal system will suffer.

“We must state directly and strongly that the integrity of the judicial branch must not be violated,” Gallegly said. “We must make it clear that all Americans are equal under the law.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Sherman Oaks Democrat who represents the Conejo Valley, criticized Republicans for pushing to remove Clinton from office for offenses the House did not deem impeachable during Richard Nixon’s presidency. Instead of impeaching Clinton, Sherman favors censuring the president now and prosecuting him criminally after his term expires in 2001.

“This House is doing the wrong thing because the majority is ignoring the precedent established in the Nixon impeachment hearings,” Sherman said, pointing out that accusations that Nixon lied on his 1969 income taxes never resulted in articles of impeachment.

“The impeachment of the president is not warranted except for misconduct dangerous to the system of government established by the Constitution,” Sherman told his colleagues.

Few congressmen remain undecided on today’s impeachment votes, and Gallegly, as a Judiciary Committee member, has voiced his pro-impeachment position several times.

Nevertheless, in Oxnard on Friday, about 50 Democrats picketed outside Gallegly’s district office and delivered a petition urging him to reconsider. By not holding a public forum to discuss impeachment, group members said, Gallegly is ignoring his constituents’ views if, as promised, he votes for impeachment.

“We heard him speak this morning, and he did not express what we believe,” said Jean Harris of Oxnard.

Censuring Clinton was a popular alternative suggested in a random survey of 15 Ventura County residents of various political backgrounds. Still, Sue Putman of Camarillo conceded at the Buenaventura Mall that that option appears unlikely to succeed in the House.

“Even the polls say the majority of people don’t want impeachment, but it looks to me like it’s going to happen anyway,” said Putman, a Republican. “The House of Representatives is going to go through with it whether we like it or not.”

Linda Ellis of Fillmore, also a Republican, said Clinton deserves more than a reprimand from Congress.

“I think he’s just a liar--and he’s supposed to be a world leader?” Ellis said. “Get rid of him. I hate liars. These military people get into trouble for having affairs with other military people and they lose their careers over it.”

But Ellis’ mother, Fillmore resident Jean Haase, said what Clinton lied about was not worth removing him from office.

“All men are liars when it comes to things like sex,” Haase said. “I’m a Republican, but this has gotten me so upset that I don’t know that I will be the next time I vote.”

Censure was also the talk of the table at a Thousand Oaks coffeehouse, where Clinton critic Jim Siandella opposed impeachment.

“Him and his wife are evil, but I still don’t want him out,” said Siandella, a stock trader. “I’d rather have a weaker president in there. I’d rather have him in there being ‘Slick Willy.’ That will only help conservatives in the long run.”

Impeachment may have dominated business in Washington on Friday, but U.S. military action in Iraq was also on legislators’--and constituents’--minds.

In his floor statement, Sherman repeated his position that the timing of the attack was unrelated to the president’s woes and accused Republicans of putting partisanship before diplomacy by allowing the impeachment debate and votes to go forward.

But at the Islamic Center of Conejo Valley in Newbury Park, a mosque representative said he personally supports Congress forging ahead on impeachment.

“Absolutely, we can’t delay that if we want to uphold the Constitution,” said Bader Iqbal, who favors impeaching Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. “The leader of the Free World has the responsibility to show character and great moral behavior.”

By lying about his extramarital affair, Jane Frank of Ventura said, Clinton was showing decency in saving his family from embarrassment. Frank, who attended the Oxnard rally, said Clinton should not be punished at all.

Instead, she said, “I would like to censure the Republicans.”

Rally organizer Brad Smith conceded that the group would not be able to change Gallegly’s mind, which Smith thinks was made up before the impeachment hearings began.

“It was never early enough to influence his vote,” said Smith, the president of the Oxnard Democratic Club.

While Gallegly was not in Oxnard to receive the group’s petition Friday, he said from Washington that his voting for impeachment jibes with the opinions his constituents are expressing to his office.

A House vote for impeachment is a vote for a trial of Clinton in the Senate, not necessarily a vote to remove him from office, Gallegly said. And while his Ventura County constituents may not want Clinton to lose his job, Gallegly maintained that they still want Congress to follow the Constitution and pursue the allegations against the president.

“Based on the calls that we’ve received,” Gallegly said, “those that understand the terms of impeachment want him impeached.”

Times staff writer Kate Folmar and Times Community News reporter Pamela J. Johnson contributed to this report.

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