My guess is that many, if not most, Americans don’t really understand how impeachment works, that if a president is impeached, he is simply kicked out. Actually, impeachment is a process intentionally designed to take time so that it may not be an act of vengeance or recklessness.
When the founders created our constitution, they included impeachment as a caution against bad behavior from the executive, as a reminder that the government has three equal parts and that executive may be held accountable by either or both other branches, in the case of impeachment, by the legislative.
To further protect against misuse of impeachment, only the House of Representatives may write articles of impeachment, and only the Senate may vote upon them. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the proceedings, but the Senate decides on timelines and procedures.
Remember that when the Declaration of Independence was sent to King George III, thirteen years before the Constitution was enacted, it was in part a list of accusations against that king and how he had wronged his subjects in the colonies. Many signatories to the Declaration were the same men who hashed out the details of the Constitution, and they would not permit the chief executive to be a monarch. He would be elected to a four-year term (George Washington set the precedent for serving two terms and then retiring) by an electoral college representing the states, which was elected by white male landowners – not a one person-one vote system. There was nothing in the Constitution addressing political parties or a two-party system; they didn’t envision that and in Washington’s farewell, he warned against it.
Impeachment, long established in British legal tradition, had three purposes. First, it demonstrated that no person was above the law. Second, it served as a deterrent against the office holder overstepping his authority. Third, it authorized removal from office, if the charges were serious enough to justify that.
We are only in the first stage of impeachment regarding the current president. The House of Representatives has begun preliminary hearings, behind closed doors in certain committees, to decide if enough evidence exists to move forward. This week they begin open hearings, having learned that sufficient funny stuff warrants the need to push forward. View as parallel to any prosecuting attorney’s work: investigate first, decide how reliable the evidence is and whether or not to continue investigating.
If and only if the hearings confirm that the president has misused his office, those committees will write articles of impeachment, parallel to charges a district attorney writes to pursue an accused criminal. The entire House votes on sending the articles to the Senate, which then sets up a timetable and rules for the trial.
Only three of our forty-five presidents have endured this process. Two were acquitted, and one resigned before the Senate could act. The acquittals occurred when it appeared obvious that the charges were trumped up –pardon the pun – and the resignation was in response to clear evidence that he would be removed.
In the current scenario, it appears likely that the House will approve articles of impeachment, and the Senate will vote them down. Everyone will cry foul, the Republican Party and the president will call it a witch hunt and say even if he done it, “it weren’t all that bad.”
The Democratic Party will say the Republicans are putting party over country, and bitter animosity will continue to be the order of the day. Half the population will believe the president is innocent and falsely accused; the other half will despair of how quickly our democracy is going to hell in a wheelbarrow.
It’s an exciting time to be alive, a witness to history in the making. It is likely that whether this president is reelected or not, the next person to occupy the oval office will have his or her wings clipped, because Congress has acquiesced much of its authority to the presidency for decades.
The next president will furthermore have the unenviable task to inspire unity among our populace. Good luck on that one.