{news} Fairfield County Weekly interviews Richard Duffee on impeachment

[David Bedell]

http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=7282

News
County Fair: Impeach and a Pair

Thursday, April 17, 2008
By FCW Editorial

In 2006, Richard Duffee, the Green Party candidate for Connecticut's fourth
congressional district, dropped out and endorsed Democrat Diane Farrell when
a Quinnipiac poll put her in a dead heat with Republican incumbent Chris
Shays. This year, Duffee says he's running again and has no plans to back
likely Democratic nominee Jim Himes since he won't run on a promise to
impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Impeachment, says Duffee is more
vital in post-Bush 2009 than it was in 2007.

Please stay with us for an explanation.

"In the last two years, the Bush administration has continued to push the
boundaries of executive power to a nearly imperial state," Duffee says.
"Someone needs to hold them accountable, preferably by [an impeachment]
prearrangement before January 20."

He adds that "power is not an easy thing to give up. It doesn't extinguish
itself. Let's say Barack Obama is our next president, and he's a great guy;
he'd never do the things Bush and Cheney did. Unless congress acts, those
powers that Bush appointed for himself"-the suspension of habeas corpus,
warrant-less wiretapping, the use of torture, preemptive warfare (to name a
few)-"will still be there for the president after him, and the president
after him."

Duffee, a Stamford-based poet, essayist and law professor, displays an
encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. and international law, and his complaints
about American government don't end with the Bush administration. In fact,
they predate the Washington administration. "What I would really like to do
is have a constitutional convention," Duffee says. He wants to replace the
winner-take-all voting system, insert guarantees of economic fairness into
the Constitution and dump the two-senators-per-state rule, saying that it
gives the 500,000 residents of Wyoming as much say in the Senate as the 36
million Californians.

But back to the issue at hand: The impeachment of the president (which all
of a sudden seems reasonable and doable). Himes, the former chair of the
Greenwich Democratic Town Committee, says "as a matter of principle, we
should hold any officials who've broken the law to task. God knows, Chris
Shays has taken no action. But for a guy like me who won't have Bush and
Cheney leaving office by the time I get to Washington, I don't see it as a
worthy use of time." Himes says he's more invested in restoring the
Constitution by bolstering congressional oversight, clarifying habeas corpus
regulations, closing Guantanamo Bay, strictly banning the torture, and
wrangling with the next president over disregard for parts of legislation he
or she signed.

"I respect Richard Duffee," says Himes, who has met with Duffee several
times. "He's a thoughtful and passionate activist. We care about many of the
same things but we clearly differ on focus." And Duffee, when asked if the
two main-party candidates were the Pepsi and Coke of the fourth district,
says firmly, "No, Jim Himes is much better; Chris Shays is a true believer
in the war and the imperial presidency."

Himes, hoping to throw that knock-out blow Farrell almost delivered twice to
the 15-full-term congressman (she got 48 percent of the vote in 2004 and
2006), doesn't see Duffee as a potential spoiler. "I think the people in
this district can see that there is a clear choice between me, someone who
cares deeply about the Constitution, and Chris Shays, someone who's voted to
help destroy it."