If Sen. Ethan Strimling wishes to gain attention for his fledgling campaign for Congress, he’s better served to scream “Fire!” into the crowded State House, rather than file legislation calling for impeachment of President Bush.

At best, his bill, which the Portland Democrat filed Tuesday, is a political parlor trick, a pandering to his Democratic base after announcing his bid for Maine’s First District Congressional seat, which is being vacated by the senatorially-aspired Rep. Tom Allen.

At worst, this bill is a dangerous, last-minute, legislative distraction. Maine’s lawmakers have until June 20, three spare weeks, to finish important business. There is taxation reform, a budget, school consolidation and other pressing issues that need swift, and sensible resolutions.

Lawmakers don’t need the political grenade of presidential impeachment that has been tossed by Strimling, who has much to gain from a starring role in the debate. He told a State House impeachment rally, held earlier this week, that he doesn’t know whether the president should be impeached.

If this is truly the case, he never should have submitted this legislation.

Allen, speaking to the Sun Journal’s editorial board on Wednesday, said overall talk of impeachment signifies what he sees as the nation’s growing level of frustration with the Bush administration. He pointed to an increasingly unpopular war with controversial origins and spiraling energy costs as the spark for the impeachment spout.

Impeachment, right now, is the watershed for dripping venom from fierce presidential critics, who have the constitutionally-protected right to criticize everything about the office. Bush is going through his deluge, just as his predecessors.

Elected representatives need to think differently. Waning days of legislative sessions, when there’s real work to be done, are not the time to pick new fights, especially something like the nitroglycerin of presidential impeachment. Strimling should remember he works for his constituents, the people of Maine.

And the people of Maine, though impacted by national policy like every American, have experienced federal representatives (Allen, Rep. Mike Michaud, Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins) better suited to debate the merits of presidential conduct, and whether impeachment is proper.

If the sartorial state senator from Portland is elected to Congress, he can also be part of this debate. For right now, however, he must focus on the job at hand.

Not the job he wants.