Right down party lines, the House Judiciary Committee expanded its impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton Tuesday by voting 20-15 to issue the subpoenas for Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh and federal prosecutor Charles LaBella.

The broadening of the scope of the investigation complicates the impeachment proceedings, said Patrick James, chairman of Iowa State’s political science department.

“In the last 24 hours, the situation has become less predictable,” James said. “With the broadening of the impeachment inquiry to some of the financial matters, it is less stable than it was. Before it seemed to be going smoothly and simply, but now it has turned away from that.”

The expansion is a continuation of the partisanship surrounding this case, said Molly Klein, president of the ISU Democrats.

“I think it is incredibly partisan,” said Klein, sophomore in political science. “It has gone too far. We need to find out what we should do to [Clinton] and get on with the real issues facing this country and world.”

The expansion is unneeded and will not result in anything new, said Nicole Jepsen, chairwoman of the ISU College Republicans.

“I do not believe they should have expanded the inquiry because I think they should have enough to go on now,” said Jepsen, senior in elementary education. “I don’t know why they should drag things out when they have enough to get him on.”

Beside the fact the president lied, the American people are growing weary of the inquiry, Jepsen said.

“I am personally tired of the way this inquiry is going,” Jepsen said. “I think that they should have proven everything about this earlier and not spread it out any more. He should be impeached because he broke the law by committing perjury.”

Impeachment is not the only option for the committee, James said.

“Censure is basically the public embarrassment of the president of the United States,” James said. “But I think at this would probably satisfy no one at all. The people who believe that the president did nothing wrong will be outraged, and the people that are out to get Clinton will probably be upset because it does not go far enough.”

But public opinion of the Office of the Independent Council is even lower, James said.

“I think of it as Pandora’s box — once it is opened up, I don’t think they can turn around and do something else,” James said.

There are numerous opinions about how the inquiry will end.

“What will probably happen to this is what has happened in every other scandal surrounding the president,” Jepsen said. “Something else will come up that the public and the politicians will put more emphasis on, and we will pull away from this scandal.”

Chris Martin, freshman in political science, called the inquiry a “waste of time.”

“I don’t think they will get anywhere before Clinton leaves office,” Martin said. “The inquiry will go absolute nowhere, and it will simply end up with a Democratic president in the year 2000.”