McKinney proposes bill to impeach Bush

<p>In what could be her final legislative act in Congress, outgoing Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney introduced a bill Friday to impeach President Bush.</p><p>The legislation has no chance of passing and serves as a symbolic parting shot not only at President Bush but also at Democratic Party leaders. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has made clear that she will not entertain proposals to sanction Bush and has warned the liberal wing of her party against making political hay of impeachment.</p><p>McKinney, who drew national headlines this spring when she struck a Capitol police officer, has long insisted that Bush was never legitimately elected. In unveiling her legislation in the final hours of the current Congress, she said Bush had violated his oath of office to defend the Constitution and the nation's laws.</p><p>The legislation says Bush misled Congress into approving the war in Iraq and violated the law with secret surveillance practices. The bill also calls for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.</p><p>"With a heavy heart and in the deepest spirit of patriotism, I exercise my duty and responsibility to speak truthfully about what is before us," McKinney said Friday night.</p><p>"To shy away from this responsibility would be easier, but I have not been one to travel the easy road."</p><p>Since Democratic voters ousted her from office in the party primary this summer, McKinney has made no secret of her frustration with Democratic leaders. In a speech Monday at George Washington University in Washington, she blasted the party hierarchy, accusing leaders of kowtowing to Republicans on the war in Iraq and on military mistreatment of prisoners.</p><p>"We're being told by them to wait on ending the war, wait on torture, wait on civil liberties, wait on learning the truth about Sept. 11," she said, speaking to more than 100 people at a panel discussion on stopping the Bush agenda. "We know that the world can't wait."</p><p>McKinney also this week quietly introduced a bill that would deny federal funding to law enforcement agencies "whose officers use excessive force or violence" and that don't have transparent procedures for investigating officers accused of brutality.</p><p>The bill is her response to the police shooting last month of 92-year-old Atlanta resident Kathryn Johnston, who was killed in her home as she fired on a group of plainclothes police officers who, with a warrant, knocked down her door searching for drugs.</p><p>Like the impeachment bill, the police bill is largely a symbolic gesture. Lawmakers are slated to adjourn this week, and McKinney won't be returning when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 4.</p><p>She lost her seat in the Democratic primary to Hank Johnson, a lawyer and former county commissioner who campaigned as a moderate consensus-builder.</p><p>McKinney, who has not discussed her future plans, has increasingly embraced her image as a controversial figure. Along the way, her relations with Democratic leaders have grown frayed.</p><p>She has hosted numerous panels on Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and suggested that President Bush had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks but kept quiet about it to allow friends to profit from the aftermath. She introduced legislation to establish a permanent collection of rapper Tupac Shakur's recordings at the National Archives and calling for a federal investigation into his murder.</p><p>But it was her scuffle with a Capitol police officer in March that drew most attention. McKinney struck the officer when he tried to stop her from entering a congressional office building. The officer did not recognize McKinney, who was not wearing her member lapel pin.</p><p>A grand jury in Washington declined to indict McKinney over the clash, but she eventually apologized before the House.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/12/111271