Women leaders tell Congress: Stop the witch huntBy Tim WheelerThis article was reprinted from the October 3, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits. 
Last week 13 women leaders, African American, Latino, Asian American and white, appealed for a mass mobilization to repel the extremist Republican drive to force President Clinton from office. In a joint statement released Sept. 24 at a Washington news conference, the women warned, "We are witnessing a relentless campaign - both inside and outside the government - to hound President Clinton out of office. This is destabilizing for our country and our democracy." The statement calls those leading the charge against Clinton "among the worst foes of women's rights." The opponents of the president "have a political agenda that will harm women long after the (Monica Lewinsky) scandal has faded." The leaders added, "We are here today to sound the alarm that if disgust with the current crisis depresses women's votes in November, we will see an anti-women's rights majority in Congress roll back the gains for women of the past 30 years." A signer of the statement, Donna Allen, president of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press, told the World the group met and discussed the statement for several days. "One of the worst effects of this scandal would be people staying at home on election day," she said. "We're all agreed on the need to get out the vote. I think this is going to boomerang on them. These right-wingers are killing themselves. Look at the polls: 66 percent want Clinton to remain in office." The statement urged women and men to call their representatives to demand that impeachment hearings be canceled and to their senators to oppose President Clinton's removal from office. The statement adds, "It is more crucial now than ever that women vote in the November elections. We must not let women's rights opponents sail to victory because women do not vote. "If women's rights advocates lose three seats in the Senate, we could lose the ability to prevent the override of a presidential veto. President Clinton's veto is all that stands between Congress and women's right to abortions ... it could mean open season not only on women's rights but also on affirmative action, Social Security, gun control, civil rights and equal educational opportunities." "We firmly believe that the ultra-conservatives will not stop at removing Mr. Clinton from office," the statement said. "Already Gore is under attack. Women should be asking the question, 'Who's on third? Who's next in the line of succession?' Next in line is the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich." The House record under Gingrich "has been an unmitigated disaster for women. The specter of a Gingrich presidency has been even more horrifying ... If you believe 'Enough is Enough,' call your member of Congress and your senators at (202) 225-3121. We do not need to wait, watch and hope some pollster calls us. We can act now!" Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, leader of the Black Leadership Forum, told the news conference, "Women should write, call, telefax, e-mail, shout and tell Congress, 'Do not impeach this president and don't force him to resign.'" Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, rejected GOP claims that Clinton's misconduct is impeachable. "Are these offenses crimes against the state?" she demanded. "Can we equate this misconduct, especially abhorrent to feminist leaders, with treason and bribery and abuse of presidential power? Of course not." Women voted for Clinton in two presidential elections, she said, "because of his positions on issues that mattered to them ... education, health care, Social Security and women's rights ... We have years of progress at stake if this president is hounded out of office." A victory for Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) would bring to power a "fundamentalist sex police who speak of freedom but allow government to destroy the right to privacy," she said. Other signers of the statement included author and feminist leader, Betty Friedan; Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women; Dr. Dorothy Height, chair and president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW); Dr. Jane Smith, current NCNW president; Dolores Huerta, co-founder and secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers; Karen Naraski, National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium director; Sheila Coates, president, Black Women United for Action; Susan Bianchi-Sands, National Council of Women's Organizations chair, and Lina Frescas Dobbs, executive director of Wider Opportunities for Women. The National Women's Political Caucus signed as an organization.
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