Impeachment talk may scuttle pro-Boeing measure

State senators are unlikely to join their House colleagues in urging Congress to investigate why the Air Force decided the $35 billion air tanker contract should go to the makers of Airbus rather than Boeing.

Apparently there is a political problem here in Olympia.

Democratic Sen. Eric Oemig has made it clear that if the Senate pressed ahead with House Joint Memorial 4034 – or the companion version drafted in the Senate – he would try to amend in language calling on Congress to impeach President Bush.

I asked him about the rumor. He smiled but didn’t confirm impeachment was to be part of his added verbiage.

Here’s what he told me:

I think it would have been very ironic to send a letter to Congress saying we can’t get enough military pork without being able to talk about the incompetence that put us in the war in the first place.

Democratic Sen. Paull Shin of Edmonds authored the Senate’s memorial. He’d been waiting anxiously for it come to the floor for a vote.

He said Senate leadership told him this evening that would not happen.

A few days ago Shin gathered signatures of 42 senators on a letter to Congress raising questions about the Air Force decision. The value of the joint memorial is it represented the collective voice of the Washington Legislature, he said.

He was disappointed

Hey, it’s 7:24 p.m. and the session isn’t over yet.