Kucinich Articles of Impeachment Against Bush Sent To Committee To 'Die'

The House voted 251-166 to send the articles of impeachment brought about by Dennis Kucinich, (D-Oh.), to the House Judiciary Committee, which is a procedure often use to kill a legislation.

Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, spending five hours reading them into the record, then tried to use a "parliamentary maneuver" to force a vote. A recent report shows that the House voted 251-166 to send that measure to the House Judiciary Committee, which is a procedure used to kill legislation and is often describe as being sent to committee to die. The house roll call on the On Motion to Refer the "The Kucinich Privilege Resolution" to committee can be found here. Previous articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney were sent to the same committee back in November and considered likely to not be addressed while the present administration is in office.

Republicans, seeing a chance to force Democrats into an embarrassing debate, voted to bring up the resolution. Democrats countered by pushing through a motion to scuttle the bill from the floor.

Back on November 8, 2006, Nancy Pelosi declared, "I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table", which seems to be the prevailing sentiment of the majority of Democrats in Congress, evidenced by the outcome of today's vote. That led to anti-war advocate, Cindy Sheehan, to declare that if Nancy Pelosi did not impeach Bush by July 23, 2007, then Pelosi would have to face Sheehan running against her by waging a third-party challenge, for the congressional seat. The outcome of the Kucinich Privilege Resolution was expected and Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, questioned the time that would be spent on impeachment in the "waning months of this administration's tenure", Tuesday afternoon.