[Peace-discuss] Impeachment-Nadler-Bolton: Case Study of Authoritarian Dynamics in Pelosi’s House

[Robert Naiman]

Impeachment-Nadler-Bolton: Case Study of Authoritarian Dynamics in Pelosi’s
House

Here’s another example of the authoritarian dynamics in Nancy Pelosi’s
House. I came to my concerns about the authoritarian dynamics in Nancy
Pelosi’s House through the issue of Yemen War Powers, and Constitutional
War Powers more broadly. But it’s a much more general problem, and this is
what I hope to show here. If it’s only an issue about Constitutional War
Powers, then only people who care about Constitutional War Powers will
care. If it’s a much more general problem, then other people might care,
and maybe it’s more likely that we can do something about the issue by
addressing it more broadly, which could be more useful in its impact on
addressing the authoritarian dynamics with respect to War Powers than if
one attempted to address the authoritarian dynamics with respect to War
Powers in isolation.

In what follows, I ask the reader to lay aside for the moment opinions
about impeachment, John Bolton, and Jerry Nadler which are not germane to
the matter at hand, which is understanding the authoritarian dynamics in
Nancy Pelosi’s House.

Recall that when John Bolton’s book came out, he said that House Democrats
messed up the impeachment of Trump by focusing it too narrowly, and by not
including the charge of obstruction of justice.

During this time, the time of the Bolton book media blitz, I saw an
interview by Jake Tapper of CNN with Jerry Nadler, Chair of the House
Judiciary Committee. Jake Tapper put the question to Jerry Nadler directly:
John Bolton says House Democrats messed up by making the impeachment too
narrow and not including obstruction of justice. What do you think about
that?

Jerry Nadler looked very irritated and uncomfortable and deflected the
question saying, we decided to focus narrowly, blah blah. I don’t remember
exactly what Jerry Nadler said. I remember how uncomfortable and irritated
he looked. I thought, watching, that I knew exactly why Jerry Nadler looked
so uncomfortable and irritated and exactly why Jake Tapper asked that
question of Jerry Nadler in that way.

Jake Tapper had been following the plot at the time the House was
considering impeachment, as I was, and so he knew that Jerry Nadler had
argued strenuously at the time for an obstruction of justice charge but was
overruled by Pelosi, even though Nadler is chair of the House Judiciary
Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction for considering
impeachment. So if you unpack Jake Tapper’s question, what Jake Tapper was
saying to Jerry Nadler on national TV was, “John Bolton is saying that you
were right and Nancy Pelosi was wrong. What do you think about that?” Of
course Nadler can’t answer that question honestly on national TV, on
national TV he has to present a united front with Nancy Pelosi against John
Bolton’s accusation, even though the accusation is that Nadler was right
and Pelosi was wrong. Even though Pelosi overruled him on a question that
was ostensibly within the jurisdiction of the committee of which he’s the
chair.

Again: put to the side for the moment what you think about impeachment,
Bolton, Nadler, and instead consider the dynamics. The Judiciary Committee
was the committee of jurisdiction. But that’s not where the power was,
that’s not where the decision was made. Pelosi decided what the scope of
impeachment would be in consultation with Schiff. It was reported in press
at the time. The House Judiciary Committee did not meaningfully participate
in the decision.

What do these dynamics mean for advocates? It means that if Nancy Pelosi
doesn’t care about you, then your opinion on such questions doesn’t count
in Nancy Pelosi's House. Jerry Nadler is chair of the House Judiciary
Committee. Even his opinion didn’t count. What hope do the rest of us have?

After the House impeached Trump over Ukraine, someone asked Pelosi why she
hadn’t supported impeaching Bush over the Iraq War. She answered very
directly: because she didn’t think that was an impeachable offense.
Imagine. Even knowing what we know now, about what a catastrophe the war
unleashed, about how the intelligence was manipulated, about how the case
for war was a fraud, Nancy Pelosi answered without hesitation with her true
views. In her view, it wasn’t an impeachable offense. Dick Durbin later
said on the Senate floor that he knew as a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee at the time of the Iraq War vote in October 2002
that the Bush Administration’s public case for war did not match the U.S.
intelligence reports he was seeing as a member of the Senate Intelligence
Committee. If Dick Durbin knew this, Nancy Pelosi knew it. But even now,
even now, Nancy Pelosi says without hesitation that lying the country into
a catastrophic war was not an impeachable offense.

So suppose you were an anti-war advocate at the time the House was
considering the impeachment of Trump, and you believed that there should be
an article of impeachment against Trump for continuing unconstitutional
U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen, even after both houses of
Congress voted against it and named the war as unconstitutional. How should
you try to make your opinion count in the political system?

I have no idea. The evidence suggests that making your opinion count on
this question would be impossible in Nancy Pelosi’s House if you’re not
someone that Nancy Pelosi cares about. Even Jerry Nadler’s opinion doesn’t
count, and he’s chair of the Judiciary Committee. You could do all the
petitions you want, write all the op-eds you want, have all the hearings
you want, lobby all the members of the Judiciary Committee as much as you
want, post online all you want. It wouldn’t matter. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t
care what you think, so you have no say.

There’s not much we can do about these dynamics right now, as far as I can
see. But we could do something about them after the November election, and
some group of people somewhere should be preparing for that.

If you look at what happened last time, Nancy Pelosi was not initially
unopposed for Speaker in the House Democratic Caucus. A bunch of people
said they were running against her or were thinking of doing so. Nancy
Pelosi went around and asked people what they wanted and negotiated deals.
And that’s how she won effectively unopposed, because she had deals with
everyone who threatened to run against her.

Here’s the deal I would like to see. I would like to see a package of
reforms of the operation of the “Democratic-controlled House” in order to
restore Schoolhouse Rock. Here’s the reforms I want on War Powers:

1. House Democratic leadership commits to the belief that Section 5c of the
War Powers Resolution of 1973 is good law, as HFAC Chair Eliot Engel stated
on the House floor in January during the debate on the concurrent Iran War
Powers Resolution, unless and until a federal court determines otherwise.
Here's Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution: "Notwithstanding
subsection (b), at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in
hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and
territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory
authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the
Congress so directs by concurrent resolution." If Section 5(c) is good law,
then we only need a simple majority of both houses to stop an
unconstitutional war. That's not as restrictive as Article 1, Section 8,
Clause 11 of the Constitution - only Congress can send us to war - but it's
a LOT closer to that world then the world we're de facto living in now,
where we supposedly need a two-thirds majority of both houses to override a
presidential veto in order to stop an unconstitutional war.

2. House Democratic leadership commits to respect the intent of the War
Powers Resolution of 1973 that a privileged concurrent War Powers
Resolution is guaranteed a timely floor vote.

3. House Democratic leadership commits that going forward a resolution of
disapproval on an arms deal will be privileged in the House according to
the same procedures that are used in the Senate.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20200819/150e6f0a/attachment-0001.htm>