Rep. James Rogan

Glendale Rep. James Rogan’s inquisitorial performance during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings lacked any semblance of judicial balance. I called his office during final testimony by one of President Clinton’s attorneys. I was told that Rogan had not yet decided on how he would vote--this at the same moment that CNN announced that the impeachment charges had already been drawn up and made public by the committee staff.

During the impeachment debate, Rogan stated presidential censure by the House of Representatives is not good enough, since a subsequent Congress could expunge it from the record. He cited the impeachment of former president Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory), the hero of New Orleans, who was impeached by a Congress controlled by the U.S. bank. This action was expunged from the records by a subsequent House. I still don’t understand his problem. Shouldn’t the House be permitted to rectify what it considers a mistake?

Rogan had been a judge prior to becoming a member of Congress. Reflecting on that experience, he said that perjury is a serious crime, and one for which he has sent dozens of persons to prison. He did not specify how many of these sentences were for lying about a consensual affair between two adults. If he had used the same yardstick on them as he used on our president, I now realize where the term “kangaroo court” originated.

With this Republican-dominated House of Representatives, I weep for our troubled democracy. It has not been so polarized since 1860, the onset of the Civil War.

LOUIS ROBINS, Van Nuys