From ConservativeAction.org:

Impeachment, Non-Partisan Style

A Non-Partisan Approach to Impeachment

by Timothy N. Hunter

Ladies & Gentlemen:

// Impeachment is a Good Government concept, as understood in The Federalist Papers. Impeachment is applied Good Government. And Good Government is what the Founders intended to create. Its your heritage.

- Elected Officials nowadays say they decline to utilize impeachment on the grounds that the voters may remove them at the next election.

- This isn't even facially true. Ordinarily, in fact, voters may have been misled in electing an official, as in the Senator Packwood ethics case. (Packwood lied to his constituents and was reelected. Ethics charges drove him out of office).

- Or, an officeholder may be a "lame duck."

- Or, the level of the office may be of such gravity that to delay actions may compromise the interests of the people as a whole.

- Furthermore, Presidents are actually elected by the Electoral College, not the people.

--The judgment of the Electoral College should be subjected to the review and oversight of the People's House of Representatives as is provided under the Constitution by our Founders.

- Or, voters in a parochial district or state may not represent the common interests of the people as a unity. Some elected officeholders were disgraceful to the country. (Sen. Huey Long, Sen. Joe McCarthy, Sen. Bob Packwood).

-- Impeachments of Federal officials should be understood as a necessary, if regrettable, part of administration.

- A responsible employer always takes care to ensure adequate oversight and review of employee performance and conduct.

- Officials are actually only temporary employees of the citizens.

- Those officials not performing satisfactorily should go on into other pursuits.

- It is unfair to an office holder and their employer (the public) to keep an officeholder in a job they aren't performing correctly.

- Such is the standard for the uniformed services, the foreign service and the civil service and is relevant to all the elected and appointed officials of the government.

- The Founding Fathers selected impeachment as the appropriate sequence for dealing with reports of problems with elected and appointed office holders.

- NOT impeaching a notorious or controversial federal official leads both intelligent and irrational citizens to form legitimate concerns, drive passions and elevate public cynicism

- One cause of the virtually unanimous mistrust of government must be assumed to flow from the lack of accountability of officials whose actions in office have become notorious.

- Books, articles, talk shows, movies, and moral leaders constantly refer to well known and even public misdeeds of officials. Nor are the named officials afforded the officially prescribed means of answering critics.

- Only the venue of impeachment confers complete exoneration for an falsely accused official.

--- The case of President Andrew Johnson is a case in point.

// Any official may be impeached.

-- Impeachment does not mean the person is guilty.

-- Impeachment is not a criminal law proceeding.

-- There are no fines, no jail sentences, no hangings.

-- Impeachment creates a public record of facts, events, allegations, and accusations in accordance with the best traditions of open and Good Government.

// A convicted official is merely out of a job.

-- Why shouldn't politicians experience a surprise RIFF notice!

// Undoubtedly impeachment is painful.

--Yet, millions of Americans annually receive job evaluations under conditions not nearly so fair.

-- Officials themselves say they should live under roughly the same sequences as the people.

- Impeachment is roughly the same as submitting to a job evaluation.

{Unfortunately, high federal officials refuse to give one another job evaluations using the government performance evaluation system}.

//Impeached officials have the option of resignation. However, to avoid impeachment is obviously an admission of charges, "no lo contendere".

//The Federal government assumes that an individual who resigns under pressure has been removed in a manner equivalent to "firing." (Standard Form 171).

- Impeachment was the prescribed mode for the people's branch of the Congress to bring forward concerns which may lead to the removal from office of a particular officer holder.

- Only the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice, renders judgment. Impeachment is an eminently fair proceeding which listens to both sides and makes a decision. And there are 100 judges -- the US Senate.

- How many factory workers get this sort of careful review before being fired?

// Conviction only results in removal from office but is not a permanent disqualification against holding elected office. (Maybe it should be, though!)

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-23rd/FL) was impeached as a Federal judge and was subsequently elected as a member for his district. He's in Congress today!

American public administration sets very high ethical standards for all officials. These standards have to be maintained and enforced from time to time.

// The country's administration today inevitably lacks the informality of earlier times. As one of the "checks and balances," impeachment is now the central political challenge of our times. Impeachment is an effective form of oversight if used correctly. Its time has come.

- While impeachments were rare in earlier periods; its utilization today and in the future on a wider and more encompassing basis will do much to restore public confidence in a civil government admittedly widely mistrusted.

//Perhaps no other reform Americans of this generation might undertake could have such a salutary effect as impeaching the officials -- regardless of their party affiliation.

//The time for bi-partisan impeachments is NOW.

Thank you.

Delivered 1/20/97, Capitol Hill Washington, District of Columbia