WASHINGTON -- A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing to censure President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.
''The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," said Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.
A censure resolution, which simply would scold the president, has been used just once in US history -- against Andrew Jackson in 1834.
Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the majority leader, called the proposal ''a crazy political move" that would weaken the US during wartime.
The five-page resolution to be introduced today contends that Bush violated the law when, on his own, he set up the eavesdropping program within the National Security Agency in the months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush contends that his authority as commander in chief as well as a September 2001 congressional authorization to use force in the fight against terrorism gave him the power to authorize the surveillance.
The White House had no immediate response yesterday.
The resolution says the president ''repeatedly misled the public" before the disclosure of the NSA program in December when he indicated that the administration was relying on court orders to wiretap terror suspects inside the United States.
''Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold said. ''And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."
The Wisconsin Democrat, considered a presidential contender for 2008, said that he had not discussed censure with other senators but that, based on the criticism leveled at Bush by both Democrats and Republicans, the resolution makes sense.
The president's actions were ''in the strike zone" in terms of being an impeachable offense, Feingold said. The senator questioned whether impeaching Bush and removing him from office would be good for the country.
In the House, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing legislation that would call on the Republican-controlled Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment.
The program granted intelligence officers the power to monitor -- without court approval -- the international calls and e-mails of US residents when those officers suspect terrorism may be involved.
Frist, appearing on ABC's ''This Week," said that he hoped Al Qaeda and other enemies of the US were not listening to the infighting.