WHY LARRY CRAIG SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO STAY

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THE CONSTITUTION, in one of its more conservative moments, allows the
Senate and House to expel their members by a vote of two-thirds. This
essentially transfers the power of tenure from the people who elected a
senator to that senator's colleagues.

Fortunately, this considerable power - that could be a formidable
partner of a political coup - has not been used extensively. The Senate
reports: "Since 1789, the Senate has expelled only fifteen of its entire
membership. Of that number, fourteen were charged with support of the
Confederacy during the Civil War. In several other cases, the Senate
considered expulsion proceedings but either found the member not guilty
or failed to act before the member left office. In those cases,
corruption was the primary cause of complaint."

While the people of Idaho lack the power to remove Larry Craig - some
tried to do it to his predecessor Frank Church and failed on
constitutional grounds - there is no reason to give the right to a group
of hypocritical and sanctimonious colleagues who, while not committing
the minimal indiscretion of illicit gay sexual advances, have
enthusiastically supported and funded an war illegal by both national
and international standards.

Most importantly, supreme control over who represents Idaho deserves to
remain with the people of that state. If they can not convince, bully or
induce Craig to step down, they may at least learn to be more careful
whom they elect the next time. 

This is not an insignificant issue as the History News Network article
describes. It is also not a novel position on the part of your editor.
Excerpts from an article - Keep the Seat, Baby - that he wrote 40 years
ago also follow.

JOSHUA SPIVAK, HISTORY NEWS NETWORK - The recall has always been at the
forefront of a fundamental question about the role of an elected
officials, namely whether the official should act as a trustee and vote
his own opinion or perform as a delegate and vote according to the
wishes of his constituency. This long running debate continues to this
day with criticism of poll-driven politicians. This clash of ideologies
was much in evidence during the debate about the recall's place in the
new U.S. Constitution.

The actual origins of the recall is shrouded in conjecture. Its modern
day creator, Dr. John Randolph Haynes, claimed that it was "derived
historically from Greek and Latin sources." However, the authors of many
of the works on the practice cite Haynes as expropriating the idea from
the Swiss.

While the first instance of the recall can be found in the laws of the
General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1631, and again in the
Massachusetts Charter of 1691, the recall gained a firm footing in
American politics with the democratic ideals that burst forth from the
American Revolution. After declaring their independence, 11 of the 13
colonies wrote new constitutions, and many of these documents showed the
new spirit of democracy. . . And a few states wrote the recall into law
as a method of controlling their elected representatives.

The states which adopted the recall were mainly concerned with the power
of the representatives who served the states in the national
government's congress. Unlike its modern day counterpart, the
seventeenth and eighteenth century versions of the recall involved the
removal of an official by another elected body, such as a state
legislature recalling its United States senator. While this form
provides a different relationship between the elected official and the
general population the principles and the debates that engulfed the
issue had not substantially changed. . .

As the Articles of Confederation government proved a failure in leading
the new country, some of the brightest lights in America met in
Philadelphia in 1787 and drafted the new Constitution. There is a
plethora of materials on the Constitutional Convention, the debates
surrounding its adoption, and its eventual impact. However, the issue of
the recall has been mostly ignored, despite the fact that the idea was
discussed. It was proposed by Edmund Randolph in his presentation of the
Virginia Plan on May 29. The plan would have allowed the recall of the
members of the first house of the legislature, who were directly elected
by the people. On June 12, the convention passed Charles Pickney's
motion to strike out the recall. . . .

The argument for the recall was a strong component of the
anti-federalist attack. The American Revolution was in many ways an
attack on the existing power structure, or as Carl Becker said it was
not just about home rule, but who rules at home. The new Constitution,
in the view of many leading anti-federalists, was a conservative
reaction to the American Revolution. One of the major opponents of the
Constitution, Luther Martin, stressed the absence of a recall for
senators, and the freedom from popular control that this absence
represented, as a reason to reject the document. Martin was opposed to
granting senators, who were elected by the state legislators and were
seen as representing the more traditional aristocratic population, a
large degree of freedom. He feared that senators would disregard their
position as delegates of the people, and be free to work against the
interests of their own states. Martin said: "Thus, sir, for six years,
the senators are rendered totally and absolutely independent of their
states, of whom they ought to be the representatives, without any bond
or tie between them."

The idea of tightly binding the senators to their states was strongly
opposed by the Federalists, most notably Alexander Hamilton. The topic
gained new life when the Constitution was sent to the states to ratify.
. .

In New York's Ratifying Convention on June 24, 1788, Gilbert Livingston
introduced a measure calling for the recall of senators by state
legislatures. Livingston was concerned that states would have "little or
no check" on senators who have a six year term of office. John Lansing,
an opponent of the new Constitution, said in words that echoed more than
a century later, "they (the Senators) will lose their respect for the
power from whom they receive their existence, and consequently disregard
the great object for which they are instituted."

Hamilton denied the premise that the state legislatures would be more in
tune with the will of the people, and argued that the recall would
prevent the senators from being able to make difficult decisions.
Hamilton said "in whatever body the power of recall is vested, the
senator will perpetually feel himself in such a state of vassalage and
dependence, that he never can posses that firmness which is necessary to
the discharge of his great duty to the Union.". . .

The recall received a considerable degree of support in America's early
years. However, its proposed use as a weapon against the power of
federal government officers failed to generate sufficient excitement to
push its way through to adoption. With the Federalists' victory, the
recall went into hibernation. It was not until the early part of the
twentieth century, when the country was faced with a very different set
of circumstances, that the recall reemerged as a viable political
option. By that time, the field of debate had shifted to the state
level, with the people themselves possessing the power of the recall.
But the focus of the debates and the nature of the arguments had
remained the same.

http://hnn.us/articles/1660.html

SAM SMITH, THE IDLER, 1967 - The case of Rev. Adam Clayton Powell--the
current moral crisis rattling the roof beams of the Republic--has
brought forth one of those occasional surges of public piety that
attempt, through momentary fervor, to compensate for our normal ethical
languor. . .

The Harlem legislator and theologian is accused of looseness with (in
order of importance to the national mind) women, tongue and federal
monies. He has been in contempt of civil authority, a fugitive from the
law. and he refuses to show any remorse for his failings. On the
contrary, he has been arrogant and flippant.

The punishment proposed for Mr. Powell is the loss of his congressional
seat. A strong case can be made against such punishment on
constitutional and other legal grounds. Furthermore, there is a good
defense based on precedent.

As recently as 1956, a member of the House was convicted of income tax
evasion, sentenced to jail and fined $10,000. Not only did the offending
gentleman subsequently regain his seat, but his seniority as well.
Senator Dodd has not been made to stand aside while more serious charges
against him are examined. Nor were Mississippi's congressmen unseated
last session despite massive evidence of the disenfranchisement of
Negroes in their districts. Congress has repeatedly declined to act in
cases involving far more evil than that alleged in the instance of Mr.
Powell.

Even Senator McCarthy got off with censure.

Should the charges lodged against the former chairman of the House
Education and Labor Committee be pressed with equal vigor against all
other deserving legislators in the land, it would become difficult to
raise a quorum in either house of Congress or for our state legislatures
to exist at all.

But there is no danger of a crusade to revolutionize American political
morality.

The pious American's taste is for the specific, not the general. We
appease our gods by human sacrifice, not by conforming to their will.

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