US Senate hearing set on move to censure Bush

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (Reuters) The Republican-led US Senate Judiciary Committee has announced it will hold a hearing next week on a call by a Democratic lawmaker to censure President George W Bush for his domestic spy program.

In a one-sentence notice yesterday, the panel said the hearing would be held next Friday by the order of its chairman, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Democratic Sen Russ Feingold of Wisconsin introduced a resolution last week calling for a Senate censure of the US president, charging that Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program was illegal. Revelation of the once secret program has caused a political uproar on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

Feingold, who attracted little support from fellow Democrats, said unless a hearing was scheduled he would push for a vote by the full Senate.

The Senate has censured a president, which amounts to a formal rebuke, only once before and that was Andrew Jackson in 1834 in a banking dispute.

Reuters DH VP0425