Stanford Report, May 10, 2006

In Print and On the Air

Recent polls put President Bush's national approval ratings in the mid to low 30s, but constitutional law experts and presidential historians say it is too early to talk about impeachment or censure. JACK RAKOVE, the Coe Professor of History and American Studies, said the nation's history on impeachment is too spotty to rely on. Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, Rakove testified before the House impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998. The Hartford Courant reported April 30 that only in 1974, when Nixon resigned before the House could vote to impeach him, did the procedure result in the removal of a president whose acts fully met the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors." "The case for impeachment against Bush is very weak," Rakove said. "The fact is that the idea of going to war in Iraq was an idée fixe for Bush and his people from the start. We knew that at the time and we knew that when we reelected him. Adding new information to that via impeachment proceedings contributes very little and is a grossly inferior alternative to an election."

California's economy will falter unless the state boosts the number of workers with college degrees, according to a new economic study released by the California Business Roundtable and the Campaign for College Opportunity. The San Jose Mercury News reported April 27 that the study looked at the future needs of the state's economy and found that the demand for workers with a college degree will grow by 48 percent over the next 16 years. By contrast, the demand for those without a degree will grow by only 33 percent. The findings follow a study released last November by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which found that California's population of college graduates is declining. "This is a very complementary study and points out that there will be a demand dimension, in addition to the supply problem that we've already seen," said education Professor MICHAEL KIRST, a senior consultant to the 2005 study. "We knew that supply will go down of college-educated and technically educated students from the community colleges," he said. "But we didn't know that the demand is going up." The study found that only 12 percent of current working-age Latinos have college degrees, compared with 46 percent of working-age whites. As the demographics of the state change, the average education of the workforce is likely to decline, Kirst said. "The state's labor force will depend increasingly on Latinos," he said. "The low college entry and completion rate of these pupils is really a concern."