For months, pundits and opponents of women's rights have been asking, "Where are the feminists on the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal?"  Today flanked by prominent women leaders, I ask, "Where is Congress on our issues?"

While the airwaves were saturated with the latest version of sex, lies and videotape, Trent Lott's Senate led the charge against working women when he and his party defeated an increase in the minimum wage. While Newt Gingrich is distracting the nation with Zippergate, he is quietly working to cut funding for family planning and to attack women's access to abortion. Two-thirds of the people are ready to move on with the business of the nation. Yet, two-thirds of Congress is tied-up in knots as they line-up to take pot shots at the president and his political agenda.

Enough is enough. No matter how offended I am by the president's behavior, it does not rise to the level of impeachable offense. And, the no-holds-barred attack by the right wing on women's  issues is more onerous.

Initially, I raised the prospect of a Gingrich presidency as a joke, running down the order of succession -- Clinton, Gore, Gingrich, Thurmond. Much to my surprise, some of the women standing with me today took me seriously and expressed great concern that the Republicans would use the Independent Counsel and the impeachment process to takeover the White House. I was initially dismissive of those who believed there was a real threat that Congress would take-out first Clinton, then Gore after having refused to confirm Gore's vice presidential nominee. But then, I picked up the Washington Post yesterday and read that, indeed, some Republicans on the Hill are exploring just such a strategy.

Let this serve as a clarion call to women across the nation: We must get out the vote on November 3rd.  And if we don't want to see Newt Gingrich ride into the White House on Ken Starr's coattails, then we'd better support the candidates who will make sure that Congress gets back to business.  If we want to see continued progress on the issues that count, then we must vote for the candidates who will champion our cause.

Just last week, we saw the president's veto of the unconstitutional abortion procedures ban sustained by only three votes in the Senate. The radical right wing is working overtime to eliminate those three votes.  NOW's PAC will be working just as hard to increase the margin of victory for women's reproductive freedom and other issues that effect women, our families and our communities. And we will fight hard to help the women who were sent to Washington in 1992:  Barbara Boxer, Carol Moseley-Braun and Patty Murray. All three have been targeted by conservatives.  We vow to bring them back to continue their work for women's rights.

Women will not be duped into joining the Gingrich/Lott assault on the president and his agenda. And women will not stand-by as the Republicans use their power in Congress to overturn a president they elected.

Washington is spinning out of control. The Congress is seriously considering the impeachment of a president who not only was elected by the people, but also continues to have the overwhelming support of the nation. The Republicans are mired in a partisan game of chicken; their feet are firmly planted on the accelerator, and they seem determined not to stop until this government crashes.

• See also the statement of Kathy Rogers of NOW LDEF.