Although he’s not my Congressman, I have a lot of respect for Peter DeFazio, but I was very surprised to learn that he is suggesting the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts.
With Democrats increasingly outraged over the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections — a change conservatives have been more successful at taking advantage of — a Democratic congressman is raising the prospect of impeaching the Supreme Court’s chief justice over the issue.
“I mean, the Supreme Court has done a tremendous disservice to the United States of America,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. “They have done more to undermine our democracy with their Citizens United decision than all of the Republican operatives in the world in this campaign. They’ve opened the floodgates, and personally, I’m investigating articles of impeachment against Justice Roberts for perjuring during his Senate hearings, where he said he wouldn’t be a judicial activist, and he wouldn’t overturn precedents.”
In his 2005 confirmation hearings, Roberts famously said, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”
According to DeFazio, Roberts hasn’t stood by his own doctrine. He pointed to former Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent in the case, in which he said the Citizens United case was not properly brought before the Supreme Court. “This procedure is unusual and inadvisable for a court,” Stevens said of the process. “Our colleagues’ suggestion that ‘we are asked to reconsider Austin and, in effect, McConnell,” ante, at 1, would be more accurate if rephrased to state that ‘we have asked ourselves’ to reconsider those cases.”
“Justice Stevens makes the point that Roberts decided a case that wasn’t even before the Court, and invited the issue before the Court,” said DeFazio. “It was the most extraordinary condemnation I’ve ever read of a perverted majority on the Supreme Court, at least in recent years.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
Go Peter!! I have to say that, even if a 2/3 majority in the House voted to impeach Roberts, it will be a cold day in hell before we get 67 votes in the Senate to convict him. However, impeachment hearings would be great, because they would keep the issue in the public eye and keep Republicans denouncing the transparency they promised. Oregon 4th, vote DeFazio!
Update: Someone posted this article on Free Republic, an extreme right-wing site, so we are getting some rather offensive comments. I request your patience in remembering that here, we treat prople with respect no matter how little they deserve it. If they refuse to respect our policy that we argue issues without personal attacks against me, this blog or anyone who comments, I will deal with it by deleting their comments and banning them. Thank you for your cooperation.
30 Responses to “Oregon’s DeFazio to Investigate Impeachment”
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Yeah, go Peter. Remove any last shred of doubt that democrats are thugs and sore losers! However, if you want to go down this road, then maybe we should also remove Justice Ginsburg for her incompetence and the dangerous precedent she created when she cited foreign law instead of the constitution when deciding cases.
Gosh, the democrats have just become a joke.
Jenny, you’re misrepresenting the facts. The decision was completely based on US Law. Foreign law was added in for additional support.
Incompetence is not grounds for impeachment, but perjury is. What? you don’t want to follow the rule of law?
Exactly!
What a kook. You cannot impeach a Justice just because you disagree with him on an issue.
This is a typical democrat response though. I wish he could get some more kooks to go alomg with him. Maybe it would open the eyes of a few more normal people about the level of stupidity on that side of the aisle.
I’ll tell you what Pete, since you are soon to be a member of a smallish minority, why don’t you go off and spend the next decade researching this one? It’ll be a good little make work project to keep you out of the way! 😆
Rick, there is a substantial difference between perjury under oath and disagreement. You’re side thought it proper to attempt to impeach a former President because he lied under oath regarding a sexual indescretion. Roberts lied under oath about the manner in which he would fulfill the duties of his office,
Let’s let the people decide majority and minority status.
If the communist democrats keep this crap up all hell is getting ready to break loose.The American people are fed up and will bare arms.The demorats have reached beyond Right and Wrong. They are making up rules as they go along.Well, for the average red blooded American the rule is The Consitution. Live by it or get the hell out of America.Recall all District Judges as our forefathers did and get back to the Constitution.Throw
the bums out. And if the communist who claim they have a right to fee speech keep pushing.Then. if they want free speech then why do communist when the gain power stop free speech? WAKE UP AMERICA
OUR COUNTRY IS CRYING OUT FOR HELP.
Susan, the rules in question here are not made up as we go along. They are clearly described in the Constitution, a document your side claims to venerate, Don’t you know that violence is the last resort of the incompetent? Your threats do not intimidate. BTW, your bare arms might need sun tan lotion. Did you mean bear arms?
Yhe court is quite aware they allowed an alien to become the president of Amerika. Some of them are traitors, and subject to the death. It is time to try them now, so, they understand they are not above the law. Traitors, at this level, is very dangerous. I agree, seek out those who sold out to the social/marxist.
Rich, the birther stance is so far off the deep end that it warrants no reply.
ye go peter -= even tho it will go nowhere. Roberts could kill a puppy or slap a baby on TV and no one would do anything.
DC, unfortunately, I think you are right.
I think we are stuck with Roberts for quite a while. That does not mean that impeachment should not be pursued. Keeping the issue in the public eye is an important result. However, I suspect that, like not forcing to republicans to actually filibuster, the Democrats will not actually followup on impeachment either.
Jerry, I agree, but one can hope that Democrats will come around due to the extreme tactics being used to take them out of their jobs.
Leaving left/right politics out of this, where is the logic of letting unlimited $ be spent by foreign or domestic interests for propaganda purposes? “Free Speech” Ha, its expensive speech.
And bottom line…if a justice lied at hearings where he was under oath…this is indeed grounds for impeachment.
Welcome Bart. 🙂
You are correct. It is not a partisan issue. Were it a member of my own party, my position would be the same.
Wow Tomcat, you pulled out some wingnuts with this one. You would think they would support the rule of law a little more. After all, perjury is established law and very valid grounds for impeachment. Too bad not more perjury before Congress is pursued.
I didn’t pull them, Jerry. They came of their own accord. 😉
“American people are fed up and will bare arms”
Well, I hope they do a bunch of tricept exercises first.
Welcome, Imwilker. 🙂
LOL!!
I hate to say it, but I agree with the wing — er, ahem, conservatives who have commented here. Impeaching a Supreme Court justice because of a decision — not gonna happen. Judges often change their outlooks after serving on the bench. The fact that Roberts said one thing during his confirmation hearings and then contradicted himself through his Court decisions — I don’t think this is perjury or any other grounds for impeachment.
Certain rightwing reactionaries (Tom DeLay comes to mind) have pushed for impeachment (or worse) of judges they disagree with. This is wrong no matter which side does it. I hate the Citizens United decision as much as anyone (so does 80% of the American population). I don’t know what the solution is, but impeachment isn’t the answer.
Tom, you raise an excellent argument, but as I see it, we’re not talking about someone who has changed their outlook over time. Here we have a man who lied during his confirmation hearing and immediately switched from balls and strikes umpire to extreme activist, deciding an issue that was not even before the court.
Tom, the impeachment is not “because of a decision.” Precipitated perhaps by that decision but the impeachment is for perjury. He did exactly what he expressly told the Senate JC he would not do. What’s more, he (arguably) acted improperly in even bringing the case to the court.
That his actions came so shortly after being installed puts the lie to any calims that “his outlook changed after serving.” It’s a horrible thing to impeach a justice but not doing something about it is even worse.
Tom, was that last part of your comment directed at me? The one in the RED. As you see, I behaved myself, but it took every once of self control that I have in me. (Which is not a lot, granted.) You might as well have put Lisa in parens after it. I take no offense, though. You can tell they are teabaggers, because every one of the posts have misspelled words and severe grammatical errors in it. I’ll leave it at that. 😆
Go DeFazio; I agree that Roberts should be impeached – if it were the other side, they would be SCREAMING about “activist judges legislating from the bench” and impeachment hearings would have already been started. Early voting is coming out strongly in the Dems favor, so I hope the trend continues. Maybe we’ll have our 67 to convict. Can they take Scalia and Thomas with them? 😆 Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with Roberts for a very lonnngggg time, as he’s only in his 50’s. God knows what other damage he could wreak in that time. I hate to think what other damage he could do in his very long term on the SCOTUS. 😡
See, I behaved myself. I think I deserve a gold star for that one. But you certainly pulled the baggers out for this one! 😉
Lisa, you didn’t come to mind at all. There are a couple of lefty bloggers that refuse to have anything to do with me or PP, because I deleted their personal attacks against trolls. It’s my long term policy not to condone the flame wars that are so common on both sides of the spectrum, because such conflicts detract from real discussion of the issues. As a rule, we don’t have much of a problem, because readers like you and I expose their arguments. After that, either they don’t come back or respond with personal attacks that I have deleted with warnings and banned them when they persisted in it..
Well, I put on my armour and headed over to the Dark Side. Having successfully completed my Toxic Decontamination Process as prescribed by Haz-Mat protocol, what I find curious is that 3 of the 4 wingnut comments occurred prior to the posting time listed at Freeperville [link supplied only for documentation purposes: hxxp://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2613026/posts?page=1 … trust me – that Decontamination Process is a bear!]:
Of course given the fact that wingnuts spend their lives in some god-forsaken parallel universe, it’s certainly possible they have different time zones also.
We all thank you for your sacrifice. 😆
I concur with Lisa.
I’ve actually used one of those Haz-Mat units, and they are fun! I edited your second link to make it inactive, because we do not provide linkage for extremists. PP runs on Pacific Time. I thing they run on Eastern time. Thery should have a separate time zone for their universe.
As good a place as any to start!!!
Welcome Sconan 🙂
Amen!