Impeachment
I am fully aware of the political calculations that have brought many Washington D.C. Democrats to put impeachment proceedings off the table. But I believe that it would set a very dangerous precedent to say that because we are concerned about division and distraction we will simply overlook the possibility that a President violated the Constitution, or misled a nation into war. Regardless of the outcome, if we are ever to expect honesty and accountability from another American president, we cannot ignore evidence of dishonesty and illegal activity in the current Administration.
As a candidate for Senate, I am hesitant to call for impeachment, because the Senate sits in judgment in an impeachment proceeding, and obviously, I believe the President and members of his Cabinet are entitled to present a defense before judgment is rendered.
I do, however, believe that an impeachment investigation of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by the House of Representatives is strongly warranted by the facts, on at least two grounds: the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and the false—and possibly deliberately misleading—statements made by the President and others to justify the invasion of Iraq, including perhaps most famously the 2003 State of the Union speech alleging that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa as part of a nuclear weapons program.
I do not take the call to begin impeachment hearings lightly. Indeed, my thinking on this issue has evolved over the course of this campaign—thanks in part to John Frohnmayer’s courage on this issue. But lesser investigations of these matters have failed to provide adequate answers and I cannot accept the consequences for the rule of law, the integrity of the Constitution or the dangerous precedent it would set if such activities by the presidency were allowed to go unchallenged.
Warrantless Wiretapping
Americans want us to fight terrorists with the strongest tools available, but not to sacrifice our liberties in the name of that security. President Bush has willfully violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that proscribes the manner in which our intelligence agencies can practice surveillance on people within the country. I agree that we need to always be looking for that edge in our fight against terrorists and extremism, but no President can choose to simply disregard the law.
Congress is currently considering revisions to the FISA law. The two key tests in that legislation will be whether the telecommunications industry is given permission to violate the privacy of their customers (and given immunity in more than 40 current legal cases for past violations), and whether it will place real protections to ensure that in the context of bulk collection of communications or "basket warrants" innocent Americans are not having their phones tapped or email read. Without these provisions, this legislation threatens to erode the very freedoms we are working so hard to protect. We always want our intelligence agencies using the best techniques to defeat our enemies, but the Constitution protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and we must not allow those protections to be sacrificed in our efforts to defeat terrorists.
Surveillance of American Citizens Without Probable Cause
A bedrock of our Constitution is that a government agent cannot search our homes or invade our privacy unless the government agent has probable cause of a crime and the agent both demonstrates the probable cause to a judge and specifically describes to a judge what the agent is seeking. The PATRIOT Act, passed in 2001 and again in 2005 by the Congress, relaxed this rule and permits certain kinds of eavesdropping without even probable cause.
This law permits the government to "sneak and peek"—come into your home, search, and not inform you that there has been a search. This practice is unworthy of our country. Even beyond the violations of civil liberties, this practice generates fear and distrust of the government.
Under this Act, a prosecutor, not a judge, can issue a "national security letter" to a third party, such as your bank or CPA, ordering your private records be disclosed and ordering the third party not to tell you the records have been disclosed.
The PATRIOT Act destroys the balance between civil liberties and security that has served us well for over 200 years. It needs to be revisited and revised to restore the balance.
Torture
America should never be in the torture business, period. It is violation of international agreements we have signed, it saps our human credibility across the globe and intelligence experts will tell you that it isn’t even an effective technique for gaining information from prisoners. As a U.S. Senator, I’ll vote to prohibit every part of the federal government from engaging in torture techniques.
Extraordinary Rendition and Habeas Corpus
The government has no right to arrest anyone and hold him or her indefinitely without charges. It is wrong whether we place them on a military base in Cuba or in a black site prison in Eastern Europe. As a U.S. Senator, I’ll support closing the military prison in Guantanamo Bay and requiring our government to end the indefinite of detention of detainees there. Congress must make clear that all people held in custody must be permitted to contest their confinement with a writ of habeas corpus.
Politicizing U.S. Attorney Offices
The United States Attorney for each district has a great deal of discretion about what cases to bring, be they criminal prosecutions or civil investigations. While the Senate has given great care to advise and consent on the appointment of federal judges, U.S. Attorneys (once recommended to the President by the senators from that district) have generally been routinely confirmed.
The U.S. Attorney-firing scandal has brought attention to the importance of independence and non-politicized US Attorneys. These nominees, though not up for a lifetime appointment, should get more scrutiny that they do now. It is my pledge that whenever a committee to which I am assigned has to vote on confirmation of a political appointee, I will vote "no" unless I have seen real evidence of the nominee’s qualifications. And when there is a confirmation vote on the floor, I will only vote "yes" if I know that the nominee went through a serious confirmation process in committee.
Death Penalty
I believe that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment in certain cases like the premeditated murder of a child. I also believe that there are several substantial reforms we should undertake as a state and as a nation on the issue of capital punishment.
Anyone facing capital punishment must have competent legal representation from the trial to the last appeal. In the late 1980's the federal and state authorities worked together to fund death penalty resource centers which provided competent lawyers to review all death sentences first in the state courts, and later in the federal courts with the writ of habeas corpus. These resources centers were de-funded in the early 1990's, and that decision should be revisited.
I also strongly support the efforts of the innocence projects to offer federal and state prisoners the right to have a full examination of all available evidence. DNA testing should be used when available, but DNA evidence is not present in every case, so DNA testing is not a cure-all for wrongful convictions.
We need to appreciate that our justice system still does not provide a fair and full defense for all defendants in our society. We must uphold our Constitutional obligations to remedy the continuing racial and economic disparities for defendants in the criminal justice system. Until we remedy those failings, the death penalty should not be used in the context of an unfair justice system.
Reducing Criminal Recidivism
First, let me say that I strongly support locking away violent criminals who pose a threat to our children and our communities. But there are also a lot of other people currently being locked away for extended periods at enormous cost to the taxpayers when there are much more effective and cost-effective ways to address crime. New York State saw a dramatic drop in crime in the 1990s, yet its prison population remained the same.
We need to be smart about how we spend our tax dollars to both reduce crime and prevent people from becoming criminals. Access to drug treatment in Oregon is abysmal and I think the methamphetamine crisis has made it clear to every Oregonian the connection between drug abuse and property crime. By the same token, study after study proves that early education through programs like Head Start dramatically reduces the chance that child will later commit a crime or go on welfare. There are a number of steps like full funding for Head Start or better drug treatment opportunities that we can use to reduce crime and save the taxpayers the expensive costs of locking away non-violent offenders for extended periods.
We need to be more thoughtful and creative in the way we address non-violent crimes committed by people who are mentally ill. Health care for all will help this problem, but without that, sometimes now the only way we deal with the mentally ill is to wait until the person commits a crime, and then send the person to jail. This is both cruel and needlessly expensive.
Here in Oregon some counties are experimenting with "drug court" or "mental health court" to address addicts and the mentally ill who have committed non-violent offenses. We should examine some of these pilot projects, along with similar federal projects, and adopt the best ideas for more general use.
