Letter to the editor: Senate leaders not following Constitution

I was slightly misquoted in your story “Westmoreland County impeachment rally draws more than 100” (Dec. 17, TribLIVE) — an easy mistake to make on a cold and snowy street corner with car horns blaring in the background.

Regarding the Congress, I didn’t observe, “They’ve said out loud they’re not going to do the job.” That would imply there’s only one job, with only one way to view impeachment. That’s exactly what Sen. Mitch McConnell, channeling White House talking points, has maintained. It would be equally unreasonable to maintain the same thing from the opposite political stance.

Instead, I said, “They’ve said out loud they’re not going to do their jobs.” My criticism was that some Senate leaders have pooh-poohed discharging their constitutional responsibilities, the ones they took an oath to uphold.

Reasonable people may disagree about the motives of political actors going into a Senate trial. But the founders of this nation held out hope that in an impeachment proceeding, the representatives of the people, standing somewhat aloof from partisan passions and disagreements, could at least rationally inspect the evidence and deliberate thereon. Despite their lip service to a literalist interpretation of the Constitution, Republican Senate leaders are denying precisely this.

Eugene V. Torisky Jr.

Latrobe