Good thing Sen. Dick Mazza was putting on his annual lunch for his fellow senators and others around the Statehouse today, or they never would have managed to eat. The building is swarming with those calling for presidential and vice-presidential impeachment. Some 300 of them had a rally about 11 a.m. today in the House chamber.

As senators were streaming toward their chamber about that time, they could hear the cheering from down the hall, and a few of them paused to wonder what had overcome their House colleagues. Floor debates in either chamber might be tough at times, but never raucous. In fact, the House was not in session; it was the impeachment folks revving themselves up for this afternoon's vote in the House.

See, things are different in the House than in the Senate. The Senate voted on impeachment quietly at 8:30 a.m. Friday. Throw that ball over to the House's court, and it's a messier game.

No matter which side of the impeachment debate you come down on, you have to marvel at the beauty of the fact that a bunch of people can come to the Statehouse, have this debate about impeaching the president in open, and no federal agents, as far as I know, are taking down names and planning to come to their homes later and break their kneecaps or move them to Siberia.

- Terri Hallenbeck