The Debate

A deeply divided House debated President Clinton’s impeachment Friday, trading bitter accusations while openly pondering history’s final verdict on their decision. Republicans called for impeachment over Clinton’s actions following his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. Democrats accused Republicans of trivializing the impeachment process and pressed for a vote on censure as an alternative to impeachment. Here are excerpts form the debate:

SIX CALIFORNIANS

Tom Campbell (R-San Jose)

Having taken the oath to God . . . unlike any other American citizen having his attorney by his side, this president chose not to tell the truth. I cannot trust him again.

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Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco)

How can the Republicans exalt Newt Gingrich to the highest post of speaker after he admitted lying to Congress and try to impeach the president of the United States for lying about his personal affairs? I urge my colleagues to vote no, stop this hatchet job on the presidency, stop this hypocrisy, stop this hatred.

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Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs)

So I appeal to every American to look deep into their conscience and weigh the consequences for our system of justice.

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Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles)

Today, we are here in the people’s House debating the partisan impeachment of the president of the United States of America, while the commander in chief is managing a crisis and asking world leaders for support. This is, indeed, a Republican coup d’etat.

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Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley)

We must state directly and strongly that the integrity of the judicial branch must not be violated. We must make it clear that all Americans are equal under the law. After much painful soul searching, I have reached the conclusion that impeaching the president for repeatedly and willfully lying under oath is necessary.

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James E. Rogan (R-Glendale)

The evidence against the president on this score is overwhelming and so, too, is Congress’s constitutional obligation. We must keep faith with our founders’ dream that a nation could rise and be sustained where no person is above the law.

THE HOUSE

John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)

Impeachment was designed to rid this nation of traitors and tyrants, not attempts to cover up extramarital affairs.

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Sam Johnson (R-Texas)

I believe the president violated the laws and beliefs he swore to uphold. Instead of following the law, respecting American people’s values and honoring his office, he chose to lie, cover up and evade the truth.

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Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Now we are routinely using criminal accusations and scandal to win the political battles and ideological differences we cannot settle at the ballot box.

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Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.)

On this solemn occasion, I will vote for impeachment. People, politics and polls change; presidents come and go. Fundamental principles do not.

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Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio)

Retribution through impeachment may feel right today, but the long-term harm it will cause our government outweighs filling the immediate satisfaction.

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Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)

This is a sad day for our country. It’s a sad year for our nation because of the conduct of the president, but also because I believe that as Republicans we have failed to rise to our obligation. As a matter of conscience, I must vote against impeachment, and I rue this day.

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Paul McHale (D-Pa.)

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to salvage any sense of nobility in reviewing the allegations before us. But there is one truth. The most basic rights of the people will be preserved only so long as public officials at every level of government tremble before the law. As a deeply disheartened Democrat, I will be voting yes on impeachment articles 1, 2 and 3.

Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.)

Make no mistake about it, it is Bill Clinton who has brought us to where we are today. And the issue here is not the relation that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky, but rather the credibility and the honor under oath that must exist within the institution of the presidency, and which has been squandered by the current occupant of this high office.

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Major R. Owens (D-N.Y.)

This defendant, this president, has been denied his basic rights. He is not a beneficiary of the rule of law. This defendant is a victim of organized partisan persecution. It is not fair. It is not just. The majority of the American people are angry for good reasons.

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Heather Wilson (R-N.M.)

Justice holding the scales is not blind because she looks away or because she will not see. Justice is blind so that every citizen, regardless of race, or creed or station in life will be treated equally under the law, and that includes the president of the United States. It is a powerful symbol, and today it is one we must live up to, even when it would be easier to look away.

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Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.)

The events of the last days sadden me. We are now at the height of a cycle of the politics of negative attacks, character assassination, personal smears of good people, decent people, worthy people. It’s no wonder to me and to you that the people of our country are cynical and indifferent and apathetic about our government and about our country. The politics of smear and slash and burn must end.

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Kenny C. Hulshof (R-Mo.)

I agree that the private failings of a public man deserve neither debate nor reprimand from this body, and yet public misconduct committed by that same official deserves punishment of the fullest measure.

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David E. Bonior (D-Mich.)

Why can’t we just pause for a second? Why can’t we stop right here and come to our senses? The American people have made it very clear they oppose impeachment. They are looking for another solution, a just solution, a solution that condemns the president’s wrongdoing, yet enables America to put this sorry spectacle behind us.

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George W. Gekas (R-Pa.)

We must exercise that conscience to which all the members have alluded, and recognize that when the president faced that moment of truth, in countless occasions, each time he swept it away and caused himself the difficulty that he brings to our chamber here today.

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Martin Frost (D-Texas)

We should reserve impeachment for those rare instances that undermine our form of government and threaten the essence of democracy. It should not be used as a club by a partisan majority that dislikes a particular president.

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Bob Barr (R-Ga.)

If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men, by force or threat of force, could long defy the commands of our courts and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from its neighbors.

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Thomas M. Barrett (D-Wis.)

And although I cannot defend President Clinton’s actions, I can and must defend our Constitution. Our Constitution does not allow us, no, it does not allow you, to remove a president from office because you can’t stand him.

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Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.)

The facts establish a pattern of false statements, deceit and obstruction. And by committing these actions, the president moved beyond the private arena of protecting personal embarrassing conduct and his actions began to conceal, mislead and falsify--invaded the very heart and soul of that which makes this nation unique in the world, the right of any citizen to pursue justice equally.

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Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)

To impeach for anything less than the highest of crimes is a distortion of the Constitution and hands a tremendous weapon to our present and future enemies, who will point to a weakened president and ultimately a weakened nation.

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Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.)

The people’s trust has been betrayed. The nation’s chief executive has shown himself unwilling or incapable of enforcing its laws for he has corrupted the rule of law--the rule of law--by his perjury and his obstruction of justice.

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Steven R. Rothman (D-N.J.)

This Republican juggernaut, driven by the right wing of their party, and aided and abetted by the so-called Republican moderates, will forever damage the constitutional balance of power in America.

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Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)

Ladies and gentlemen, any president of the United States, regardless of party, that goes to a federal grand jury in the future--let it be said by as many members of the House that can say it: You’re subject to being impeached if you do that.

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David R. Obey (D-Wis.)

To those who say censure has no bite, my response is this. I come from the state of Joe McCarthy. Tell him censure has no bite. It destroyed him. Whether the president has committed perjury or not is a legal, technical question that can be decided by a jury and a judge in our court system at the proper time.

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James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.)

I rise in favor of impeaching William Jefferson Clinton. I take no joy in this decision, but I make no apologies, either. America will emerge from this dark period of our history a stronger nation because we have demonstrated once again the resiliency of our democracy and the supremacy of our Constitution.

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Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-N.Y.)

The allegations against President Clinton, even if proven, are not subversive of our government. The president is not accused of abusing the power of his office or attacking the fundamental freedom of any American. He’s accused of lying about and attempting to prevent the revelation of his consensual activities with a White House intern.

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Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.)

This is not about sex. This is about what happens when you take a poll and that poll tells you whether or not to tell the truth. And that poll tells you that they won’t accept your perjury. And the president says, well, we’ll just have to win. And this case, this impeachment proceeding is about what occurred after that--the cover-up.

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Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas)

How do we heal this nation? How do we find uncommon courage? The majority must allow us to vote on a free-standing censure resolution constitutionally allowed; that acknowledges that the president was morally wrong, misled the American people, and that the president upon leaving office will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. To do more lays the shredding of this Constitution at our feet.

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Sue Myrick (R-N.C.)

As sad as this is for our nation, this action is necessary so that all of us can continue to not only uphold but teach those basic truths and basic right and wrong in our houses and most assuredly in this House. Yes, to err is human, but to lie and deny and vilify, rather than that we need to confess and repair and repent. Just remember, the children are watching.

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Rick Boucher (D-Va.)

To misuse the impeachment power in this case, as some are now prepared to do, will create a national harm. The divisions on the subject which now exist within our society will harden and deepen. A rift and a divide will occur. There will be a polarization. The president and the Congress will be diverted from their urgent national business. . . . These harms are unnecessary. The president’s conduct was deplorable, but it was not impeachable.

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James M. Talent (R-Mo.)

If we do not stand up for something that is clearly right when we have an inescapable obligation under the Constitution to do it, we become part of what is wrong. I’m not going to vote for these articles because I want to, I’m going to vote for them because I see no other honorable alternative.

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John Lewis (D-Ga.)

America is sick. Her heart is heavy. Her soul is aching, and her spirit is low. Today our nation stands at a crossroads--at the intersection of participatory democracy and the politics of personal destruction. Today, my colleagues, you must choose, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, between community and chaos. You must choose the course of partisan destruction or national reconciliation.

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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)

Lying under oath is an ancient crime of great weight because it shields other offenses, because it blocks the light of truth in human affairs. It is a dagger in the heart of our legal system and indeed in our democracy. It cannot, it should not, it must not be tolerated.

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Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.)

I fear for our republic on this dreadful day. I fear for America today.

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Howard Coble (R-N.C.)

Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest . . . we have no right to keep him in public life. It matters not how brilliant his capacity.

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William J. Jefferson (D-La.)

Like Lincoln, I worry that even though we are the preeminent power in the world, today this grating, this chipping away at the high ideal of impeachment leads us further down the road to constitutional death by suicide of a free society.

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Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.)

Perjury and obstruction of justice, even regarding a private matter, are offenses that have a substantial impact on the president’s official duties because they are grossly incompatible with his preeminent duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Perjury and obstruction of justice are not private matters, they are crimes against the system of justice, crimes for which this president must be impeached.

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Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.)

I was removed from office after being found not guilty, and here we are, talking can we censure. Today, we reach the zenith of unfairness. Our military, under the aegis of our president, is attempting to downgrade weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we are unmasked, as a body, degrading the institution of the presidency. It’s not sad, it’s irrational.