If the VP is the one being impeached (and there’s a good case to be made for it, too), it would be hard for him to preside as well. One would assume that the shriveled remains of William Rehnquist would be hauled in, Mikado stripes and all, for Cheney’s “trial”.
“Trial” and “Conviction” should be parenthesized because they have jack squat to do with the legal process. “Hearing” and “Removal” would cause much less confusion.
What happens if there’s a vacancy in the office of Chief Justice while the trial in ongoing? Who would preside then?
The senior associate Justice becomes acting CJ, so presumably we’d see Stevens doing it.
Wasn’t it the Governor George Pardee or California that declared martial law, etc.
And every member of the Cabinet was handpicked by Bush and they serve at his pleasure. As to the Senate, it takes a 2/3 majority to remove a President from office following impeachment by the Senate. When was the last time a party had a majority in the House a 2/3+ majority in the Senate, but the opposition in the White House?
Congressmen cannot be impeached. That was decided in the first impeachment ever under the Constitution, that of Senator Blount. The reasoning basically comes down to three points.
A) Legislative - The Constitution allows each House of Congress to expel their own members for cause without impeachment. Also, legislators are not “civil officers” of the government (see next).
B) Executive - The Constitution states that “officers” are impeached. Wording of the Constitution implies that “civil officers” are members of the executive branch listed in the Constitution, i.e. the President, the Vice-President, and the Cabinet (see Sec’y of War Belknap of the Grant administration)
C) Judicial - Justices & judges can be removed for cause, but the Constitution does not state how. Since there is an indication in the Constitution that justices and judges are judicial “civil officers” of the government. Ergo, they can be impeached.
The original quote is from Rep. Gerald Ford when in 1970 he tried to get SC Justice William Douglas impeached.
“An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
Probably the Andrew Johnson administration. You know what happened.
Well, the shoot to kill order was the mayor’s:
http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906.2/killproc.html
And it turns out I was wrong about Roosevelt declaring martial law…martial law was never declaired. Newspaper accounts said the president declared martial law, but in reality, General Funston decided himself to send the troops out (and then got the backing of the Sec. of War)
http://www.sfmuseum.net/1906/callchronex.html
Here’s the telegram from the War Department to General Funston showing that the administration told the Red Cross and the Army to make sure not to discriminate against Chinese in terms of aid.
Here’s the President’s decision not to accept direct foreign aid
Which, to my mind, doesn’t make much of a case. What the American people have come to expect from their President has changed over the past century. And just because another President fucked up 100 years ago doesn’t mean the current President should be let off the hook for it.
Maybe. I don’t really have an opinion. But somebody asked a factual question and I answered it.
You don’t impeach a president for being an incompetent. You could vote against incompetent folks. You know, keep them out of office in the first place.
Tris