BILL REQ. #:  S-1832.1 

Read first time 02/15/2007.   Referred to Committee on Government Operations & Elections.

     TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:
     We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:
     WHEREAS, On September 8, 2006, when summarizing a bipartisan Senate investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said that, "The Committee's investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq has revealed that the Bush Administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading. The Administration pursued a deceptive strategy of using intelligence reporting that the Intelligence Community had already warned was uncorroborated, unreliable, and in critical instances, fabricated."; and
     WHEREAS, The President, the Vice President, and members of the President's Administration appear to have deliberately misrepresented the severity of the threat from Iraq by providing distorted intelligence to Congress and the public in order to justify war with Iraq; and
     WHEREAS, The war with Iraq has cost the lives of many Washington state residents and squandered taxpayer money from the state of Washington; and
     WHEREAS, The President has publicly admitted to conducting electronic surveillance of thousands and perhaps millions of American civilians without seeking warrants; and
     WHEREAS, Washington state residents are likely to have been subject to this electronic surveillance; and
     WHEREAS, The President, the Vice President, and members of the President's Administration have acted to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights, based solely on the discretionary designation by the President of a United States citizen as an "enemy combatant"; and
     WHEREAS, Such offenses, if committed, are subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of Washington state and of the United States of America; and
     WHEREAS, Petitions from the country at large may be presented by the Speaker of the House according to Clause 3 of House Rule XII; and
     WHEREAS, Jefferson's Manual section LIII, 603, states that impeachment may be set in motion by charges transmitted from the legislature of a state; and
     WHEREAS, If the President and/or members of his administration committed such offenses, ignoring these offenses would undermine core American values of truth and justice; and
     WHEREAS, Impeachment is a process defined in the United States Constitution by which charges are brought against a President or Vice President or civil officers of the United States; and
     WHEREAS, The filing of these charges is followed by a trial in the United States Senate that determines guilt or innocence;
     NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully request that, in order to preserve confidence in the office of the Presidency and the Executive branch, our senators and representatives in the United States Congress determine whether there is sufficient evidence to charge President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney with the above offenses and, if so, to follow the Constitutional process of impeachment.
     BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.