Lisa Kolarik has not been politically active for long. "I only became really engaged after the last presidential election because I was so devastated by the result," she said.
This week, her efforts to get her town to adopt a resolution to impeach Donald Trump took a major step forward when its Selectmen voted unanimously to send it on to the May 23 Town Meeting.
Lisa Kolarik of Brookline, Mass.
The Brookline Resolution in Support of Congressional Investigation Regarding Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump began when Kolarik discovered the legal advocacy group Free Speech for People. FSFP, founded by constitutional lawyers on the day of the Citizens United ruling in January, 2010, has, among other legislative efforts, been working on an amendment to the Constitution to get money out of politics.
But on Jan. 21, the day after Trump’s swearing-in, FSFP, in partnership with Tennessee-based public interest organization RootsAction, launched Impeach Trump Now. The movement was featured on the Jan. 27 Democracy Now! program.
On February 16, 2017, the groups delivered a petition with over 860,000 signatures to Congress, calling on Members of Congress to introduce the resolution to investigate President Trump’s violations of the Constitution as well as the federal STOCK Act (The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, an Act of Congress restricting insider trading that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 4, 2012).
That spoke to Kolarik loudly and clearly.
“It is clear to me that, as a public servant, the President of the United States should not benefit financially from holding public office,” she said. “If President Trump had ever held another public office, he would have had to address the obvious conflicts of interest inherent in his business' dealing with foreign governments, as well as US state governments and the Federal government itself,” she said.
A progressive enclave Brookline certainly is, with the legislative history to prove it. The town has banned plastic bags and Styrofoam, and town government has debated campaigns regarding spanking, the Pledge of Allegiance, leaf blowers, plastic water bottles, traffic calming, children’s bicycle seats, turning right on red, veal, trans fats, and invasive plant species. This is a town where residents will soon need to go online to opt out of a green home electricity program, rather than to sign on to it.
The upcoming impeachment vote is nothing new to Brookline either, which, in the fall of 2002, voted favorably on a resolution opposing a US attack on Iraq, and in 2006, voted to impeach George W. Bush.
“I was privy to the planned warrant article, personally and enthusiastically support it, and am optimistic the PAX Board also will on May 14, for our mailing to the 240 TMM’s,” said Marty Rosenthal of Brookline PAX, which sponsored the town’s Iraq resolution. However, he cautioned about the effort’s need to stick to the shared vision he feels the Hillary Democrats lacked.
The national campaign cites Trump's "refusal to divest fully from his business interests, as is required by the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause." According to its site, as of April 21, 933,040 have thus far signed on.
The resolution scored its first municipality when, following a March 27 FSFP panel discussion at the Center For Faith and Justice, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved the model resolution. The California cities of Richmond and Alameda have followed suit, as has Charlotte, Vermont.
FSFP Board and Legal Committee Member Marguerite Dorn told the HuffPost that the impeachment effort is nonpartisan, and also, not about policy per se. “The day that Donald Trump took office, he was in violation of the Constitution's prohibition on personally profiting on the office of POTUS,” she said. “He was well-warned beforehand, and chose to take minimal steps to create a divide between himself and his businesses. He did not create a blind trust; he is able to take funds from his trust at any time, and his sons — with whom he is in constant contact — manage the business.” Dorn called it “the most extreme situation of Presidency-for-profit that the US has been confronted with, despite many past presidents having wealth and ongoing business entities.”
And Trump’s violations are further compounded by his not releasing his tax returns, a first for any President.
On April 3, Cambridge, Massachusetts became the fifth city to pass the resolution.
The activist group Cambridge Area Stronger Together is reaching out to nearby municipalities Somerville, Arlington, Belmont, and Watertown, and, according to Dorn, citizen groups are taking the resolution through their local governments in Sacramento and Los Angeles, as well as in Upper Arlington, Ohio.
In Massachusetts, the resolution is being advanced in Leverett, Amherst, and Wellesley, where Kolarik grew up. It is on the dockets in Newton and now, in Brookline.
Kolarik launched her drive after she attended a March 2 talk by FSFP President John Bonifaz and Board Chair Ben Clements in Jamaica Plain that was sponsored by FSFP, Jamaica Plain Progressives, Jamaica Plain Forum, the National Lawyers Guild-Massachusetts Chapter, and RootsAction.
Bonifaz, an Amherst-based attorney and longtime political activist, is a Harvard Law School graduate who received a 1999 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In 2006, he ran for the Democratic nomination for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Clements served as Chief Legal Counsel to former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and, also in Boston, as Assistant United States Attorney.
“After hearing Free Speech for People officials explain that the Constitution has been violated by President Trump from the moment he took office, I became motivated to not let the violations continue without resistance,” said Kolarik. “I think our Representatives in Congress need to know that we care, and won't let anyone ride roughshod over the principles upon which this country was founded.”
Armed with a petition for Brookline residents to sign, she attended a subsequent March 21 talk with Clements and FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein at the Grace Episcopal Church in Newton, sponsored by FSFP, Indivisible Massachusetts Action and RootsAction. There, she met Cindy Rowe, Chair of the Brookline Democratic Town Committee and also, Alexandra Borns-Weil, who became a co-filer of the warrant when Kolarik filed it at Town Hall.
But she had missed the Town deadline for warrants (petitions) to come in prior to the biannual Town Meeting, to be held next on May 23. "We thought we'd have to wait until the November meeting, but I contacted Kim Smith, a Precinct 6 Town Meeting Member, who got Selectman Ben Franco on board," she said.
Rowe said the BDTC does not officially take positions on warrant articles, but she sent out an email. “We cannot allow our President to disrespect the US Constitution on a daily basis,” she said. “This is a moment for Brookline residents to speak up. We must add our voices to the growing movement demanding impeachment of a President who refuses to abide by the very document he swore to protect and defend. This is hypocrisy of the most dangerous order, and we have to make sure it ends.”
Cindy Rowe
Franco told Kolarik that if she collected 200 signatures by April 13, he might be able to include the Resolution before Town Meeting Members by calling for a Special Town Meeting within the regular May meeting, if the Selectmen would vote on April 18 to put it on the agenda. Kolarik, who collected 429 signatures, would then speak before the Selectmen prior to the May 23 vote.
Clements will speak in Brookline on May 17, and Kolarik is next mobilizing her forces to invite Town Meeting Members and Selectmen, so that they might learn more about resolution before they vote.
She said she often hears the argument against impeachment that goes something like this: "He is a businessman. He can't separate himself from his business.” To that, she answers that he can, and he must. “The separation is not an uncomplicated or easy process, but constitutionally it's what the job demands,” she said. “Constitutional scholars and government ethics experts offered advice on how to extricate himself from his businesses, but he chose to ignore it, thereby violating the constitution from his first day in office.”
So it’s time to take action, and she’s leading by example.
“We as citizens should make sure our elected representatives in the US House uphold the Constitution so that no one, including President Trump, operates above the law.”
Susie Davidson tweets at @SusieDavidsonMA.