If presidential impeachment drama is in the cards for Congress this fall, what’s California’s role?

Obviously, the conversation begins with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It’s her responsibility to, in effect, decide which rabbit hole for Democrats to descend—whether it’s politically sager to file a single article of impeachment based strictly upon the president’s dealings with Ukraine, or to broaden the charges to include other Democratic hobbyhorses (emoluments, Stormy Daniels, etc.).

Those of us at Fordham have strived over the course of our organization’s two-decade existence to stay open to new evidence and to be willing to change our minds. For example, we shifted from the notion of "letting a thousand flowers bloom" when it came to charter schools to acknowledging that "some weeding is necessary" after multiple studies showed just how poor the achievement of some charters was turning out to be, and just how hard it was to actually shut such failing charter schools down. And there have been other smaller shifts over the years, too, on funding, teacher diversity, and more.

Whenever the Israeli–Palestinian question arises in Washington, an assumption inevitably precedes it:  the United States has an important and unique role to play in advancing peace between these two peoples.  Israelis and Palestinians might make progress alone (the 1993 Oslo Accords).  But the two can only go so far, so we are told, without American mediation, primarily because only Washington can push Jerusalem into taking risks— “land for peace” and military restraint toward the security deficiencies of the Palestinian Authority—that are the stepping stones to a two-state solution, the endgame for a peaceful settlement.