AlterNet: Impeaching Bush, State by State: "Forget bird flu, impeachment is spreading across the nation, state by state.

On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Dave Zuckerman (Prog.-VT) dropped the third of three nearly unreported bombshells on the Bush administration. Zuckerman, along with 12 fellow lawmakers, introduced a formal resolution for the Vermont state legislature to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush.

With this resolution, Vermont joined the California and Illinois state legislatures, already embroiled in impeachment debates of their own.

...

The legal basis for these unprecedented state-level actions was discovered when, according to Steven Leser, Illinois Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough 'stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the U.S. House of Representatives.' The rule was written in a book formerly known as Jefferson's Manual, which, according to C-SPAN, 'is a book of rules of procedure and parliamentary philosophy … written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801 … [used by the House] as a supplement to its standing rules.' Section LIII, sec. 603 states, 'There are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion … [one of them is] by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State …'"

(Via AlterNet.)