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The House of Representatives issued citations of contempt against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former chief White House counsel Harriet Miers today. This legal move, which is equivalent to a legislative arrest and carries the consequence of imprisonment, came after Miers and Bolten obeyed orders from George W. Bush to ignore congressional subpoenas to testify about their involvement in alleged White House criminal activities.

For a member of the Executive Branch to ignore a congressional subpoena is an open defiance of the rule of law and the Constitution. For the President to order his subordinates to do so amounts to a paper coup d’etat against the Constitution. Through this act, President Bush essentially told Congress that it no longer has any power to oversee the Executive Branch, a power assigned by the Constitution.

George W. Bush, through Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, is in open rebellion against the Constitution.

Only three Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives had sufficient respect for the rule of law in the United States to vote in favor of the contempt citation. These three Republicans are:

Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland
Walter Jones of North Carolina
Ron Paul of Texas

I’ve teased Ron Paul for his kooky libertarian ideas a lot in the past, but today he deserves respect for doing the right thing. Walter Jones has his share of wacky right wing history as well - he’s the guy who came up with the law renaming “french fries” as “freedom fries” - but today Representative Jones is on the right side. As for Wayne Gilchrest, well, he’s got nothing to lose, as he was just replaced as the Republican nominee for Congress in his home district for the 2008 election.

Most of the House Republicans just walked out on the vote - House 2008 Roll Call Vote 60. Republican leadership said that the House of Representatives should be working on confirming the Senate’s authorization for electronic spying by the government against the American people instead. Can you believe that? The Republicans really think that enforcing the law is a frivolous activity that should be sacrificed for the sake of making the President of the United States into a totalitarian spy master.

There is one other shameful, if not disappointing, aspect to the vote on the citation of contempt. One House Democrat, Henry Cuellar from Texas, actually voted with the Republicans against the contempt citation. Henry Cuellar has a nasty habit of voting with the Republican Party to help them establish the worst aspects of their agenda. If Cuellar’s seat was lost to the Republican Party in 2008 so that a Democrat with integrity could run for the seat in 2010, it would be to the long-term benefit of the Democratic Party.