Lame Excuses: From Impeachment to Genocide, to Iran war powers, Democrats fail to act

by Linda Pentz Gunter

(This article was published in the May/June 2026 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen. You can get a copy of the print edition of the paper at capitolhillcitizen.com)

“Total cowardice,” muttered a friend recently after spending a day on Capitol Hill visiting various predominantly Democratic Congressional offices. 

She was lamenting what so many of us experience during visits to the Hill, where we are routinely met with a whole litany of largely lame excuses made by Democratic offices as to why they can’t do anything. This even includes refusing to support legislation brought by members of their own party. 

The disconnect between many Democratic members of Congress and their constituents – never mind the mood in the country in general – is matched only by the disarray within their own ranks. The low point of this was on full display when Representative Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat, was the only member of his party to vote on April 15 – tax day – against the House War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res.40), which would have limited President Trump’s ability to continue waging war with Iran. 

The vote failed to pass by one vote. His. Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin decided to visit Golden’s office after the vote to find out what prompted such a fatal defection – the vote was 214-213. 

In an off-camera response she recorded and later posted while speaking with one of Golden’s staffers, she was met with possibly the most preposterously absurd justification yet. “His biggest thing right now is that if we abruptly cut off this war, then that could leave this region really destabilized,” the staffer told Benjamin. “He thinks abruptly ending this could be a really big problem down the road and while he might not have been for it in the first place, we are in conflict now, and we’re limiting the presidency’s options so much by ending this really abruptly.” 

There is a wonderful word in British English that applies to such situations: gobsmacked. But Benjamin, whose gob has been doubtlessly thus smacked countless times, pressed on. Surely, she reasoned, it’s obvious that it is the war itself that is dangerously destabilizing the region? 

The staffer would not be moved. It is no surprise to note that Golden has accepted more than one million dollars from pro- Israel sources since he arrived in Congress in January 2019.

He announced last November that he will not be seeking re-election. Golden’s defection was not the only one of the day. 

That same evening, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, offered two Joint Resolutions of Disapproval in the Senate – one to stop sending $295 million worth of armored bulldozers to Israel and the other to halt weapons of mass destruction, in particular 1,000 pound bombs, at a cost of almost $500 million to US taxpayers. 

Despite the now – and, in reality always – indisputable evidence that Israel is using both the bulldozers and the bombs to attack civilians and non-military infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza – where humanitarian supplies and needed relief personnel are still being blocked from entering – eleven Democrats decided it was perfectly alright to perpetuate Israeli war crimes by voting to approve the bombs. 

Seven of them voted to keep sending the bulldozers. Among this ugly minority was the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, alongside his New York colleague, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both of whom seem to have forgotten that New York is ranked in the top five most progressive states in the country. Schumer’s vote prompted immediate calls for his resignation as Senate Minority Leader, from members of his own party. 

“Mr. Schumer, you are out of touch with our base and the nation. Step aside,” said California Congressman Ro Khanna. 

The vote was nevertheless hailed as a historic shift within the Democratic Party, given that 40 Democratic Senators voted for the resolution this time, compared to the 17 Democrats who joined Sanders the first time he offered a joint resolution of disapproval to block arms sales to Israel in November 2024. 

The legislation did not pass, of course, since the Republicans all voted against it, demonstrating a unity, albeit for the wrong cause, that the Democrats appear unable to muster. The disarray within the Democratic Party had been on full display already during multiple attempts by Congressman Al Green of Texas to bring articles of impeachment against President Trump. 

Green began his efforts during Trump’s first term, but not only has he never had his party’s full support, he has been the object of open hostility from some of his own colleagues. 

In response to Green’s second impeachment attempt during Trump’s current term in December 2025 (Green also tried in June 2025) the Democratic brahmins quickly closed ranks, putting out a statement both patronizing and procrastinatory, claiming that impeachment can’t just happen overnight. 

“The effort traditionally requires a comprehensive investigative process, the collection and review of thousands of documents, an exacting scrutiny of the facts, the examination of dozens of key witnesses, Congressional hearings, sustained public organizing and the marshaling of the forces of democracy to build a broad national consensus,” wrote House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts), and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-California) with no small measure of pomposity. “None of that serious work has been done.” 

And yet not one of them could be bothered to embark on that serious work, no matter how much peril the clearly deranged occupant of the White House continued to put us in. Nevertheless, 140 House members still voted against the tabling of Green’s December articles of impeachment – with 23 supporting the motion, one of whom was Golden – once again laying bare the chasm between Democratic leadership and rank-and-file Congressional members.

Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar all voted ‘present’, the ultimate wishy-washy stance. An even stronger reprimand came from another Democrat during Green’s impeachment attempt last June, after the Trump administration launched its first bombing attack against Iran’s nuclear installations. 

Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida exclaimed: “What a message to China and Russia – after we take military action, we try to impeach the president.” Green’s efforts were variously described as“unhelpful,” “unserious” and “premature.” 

Such is their eagerness to silence the progressive wing of their own party, that ten House Democrats, one being Moskowitz, had earlier joined Republicans to pass a measure censuring Green for his outburst against Trump during a joint session of Congress in March 2025.

According to an April 2026 poll, 84% of Democratic voters want to see Trump impeached. Free Speech for People, a group founded after the passage of Citizens United, has found 27 grounds on which to do so. 

And yet, as the editor of this paper, Russell Mokhiber, asked at the April 8 legal symposium on Capitol Hill – organized by CHC publisher Ralph Nader and his team and covered elsewhere in these pages – after noting the absence there of any sitting member of Congress: “Why aren’t the Democrats pushing impeachment?” 

Once again, there is a long list of lame excuses. One of the more reprehensible ones, responded former Assistant Attorney General and longtime Nader colleague Bruce Fein at the symposium, is that “the Democrats believe that by doing nothing they will get more success in November. So they would sell the nation out to get an electoral upper hand.” 

Fein also attributed their inaction to “an epidemic in Congress of constitutional illiteracy.” In other words, not only are members of Congress not exerting the powers bestowed upon them, they don’t even know what they are. 

The “doing nothing” strategy has been on regular display during meetings with Congressional offices. The most common – and perhaps lamest – excuse is “we can’t do anything because the Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House.” 

The idea of just speaking up, of letting your constituents know where you stand and that, just maybe, you actually stand with them, doesn’t seem to cross their minds. 

Then there is “the bill will never pass anyway so it’s not worth voting for it.” This was a frequent refrain whenever the generically known “Block the Bombs Act” came up – officially H.R.3565: “To provide for a prohibition on the transfer of certain defense articles to Israel.” 

It was first introduced in the House on May 21, 2025, by Democratic Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois and had an additional 65 co-sponsors at press time. Given the paucity of support – there are currently 213 Democratic members of the US House – it has never been put to a vote. 

One colleague visiting a Democratic House member was told by her aide that her boss would never support the Block the Bombs Act “because there are two sides to this conflict,” as if there was some sort of military equivalency between Israel and the hapless Palestinian population of Gaza. 

But then she has never had to collect up pieces of her children in a plastic bag, as Dr. Shahd Hammouri described so vividly when discussing the horrifying findings of the independent UK Gaza Tribunal she co-led when its report was released in March. When Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois was asked at a public meeting posted to X why he hadn’t signed onto Block the Bombs, a question that elicited cheers from the audience, he responded, “I have called for establishment of a Palestinian state,” then gestured for further applause. 

He was met with a mixture of clapping and heckling. After the ruckus died down he said “I will always vote to support Israel because they are a friend and an ally.” 

But pressure works. Days later, he signed onto the Block the Bombs Act. Even his rhetoric had shifted, as he described the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran as “horrific” and “illegal.” 

Yet, Democrats still spout various versions of “Israel has the right to defend itself,” even though there is nothing “defensive” about denying Palestinians clean drinking water, access to hospitals and medical care, safe shelter and nutritious food, never mind the right to live in peace in their own land. 

The stripping of funding for the international aid entity, UNRWA, will have to remain in place because “we can’t undo the vote.” 

The definition of “genocide” is still being debated. And there is no point trying to impeach Trump because “we’ve tried that too many times already”. 

And then there is Fein’s contention that the Democrats are cravenly playing for time, confirmed time and again during Hill meetings when we are told that “things will be different after we sweep the midterms.” 

With the power back in their hands, the Democrats tell us, “we’ll get things done.” But will they? As my disgruntled friend pointed out, the Democrats had the Senate under President Biden, and the House for the first half of his term. And yet, Trump continued to walk free. 

The genocide in Gaza began with not only no effort by the Democrats to stop it, but with their active support. Instead, all we are getting is more business as usual. On April 9, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) panel voted against a resolution brought during its spring meeting that would have questioned the flood of corporate and “dark money” influencing primaries, including from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has heavily influenced Democratic voting on the continued funding and arming of Israel. 

The Florida DNC member, Allison Minnerly, who brought the resolution, considered it a nobrainer, utterly in keeping with the mood of Democratic voters. “People hate corporate money and do not want to be involved in further conflict in the Middle East,” she wrote. 

Instead, her resolution was viewed as “divisive.” Over and over again we are told in Hill meetings with Democrats that privately they are with us and are saying all the right things behind closed doors. They are just not ready to share that publicly. Which is, in effect, totally useless, another tree falling in the forest that no one hears.