Do we, in fact, have a Supreme Court decision regarding the limits of the impeachment power? That is, has the Supreme Court, for example, struck down an impeachment on the basis that the attempt was not valid because the alleged acts were not “high crimes and misdemeanors”? Conversely, has the Supreme Court specifically stated, in upholding an impeachment, that it will not look into that question?
In the lack of either, we don’t know that Congress can impeach for anything. The Court could always decide otherwise.
Well right now Trump’s approval among Republicans is 90%, yes Ninety Percent! (Gallup July 9 - 15 _ 2018). And his approval rating has consistently been in the high 80’s ever since the beginning of the year. What pray tell would bring it down to 65%?
The key phrase that he used in your excerpt was “viability” as president. That, in my view, is what impeachment comes down to: whether or not the president can continue to function in his role, and to the degree to which the national legislature has confidence to that effect.
That, of course, has a lot to do with the mood of the country.
I did. I don’t see anything which contradicts what I said.
I quoted the Constitution; that’s the text of the law. Now what does that law precisely mean? What is a High Crime? The Constitution doesn’t say.
I might have one opinion of what constitutes a High Crime. MEBuckner might have a different opinion. Charles Black might have an opinion that’s different from both of ours. But none of us is in a position to tell Congress or the Supreme Court that they have to abide by our opinion.
Lord Feldon cited Nixon v. United States (1993) which said that Congress was the sole authority to interpret impeachment law. Or did it? The decision said that Congress had the sole authority to set the procedures for impeachment; it didn’t specifically say that Congress had the sole authority to define what impeachable offenses were. A future Supreme Court decision might decide that precedent only answered the former question and not the latter. There’s the precedent of Powell v. McCormack (1969) - in that decision the Supreme Court stated it did have jurisdiction over what constituted Congress’ jurisdiction.
Any court that defied the public’s will would find itself delegitimized and those justices who rendered decisions in defiance of popular opinion would be impeached. And there wouldn’t be a goddamned court precedent in the world that could stop it.
Putting aside the substantive question, what did Professor Black (mentioned above) mean when he wrote that someone “could not” be impeached for some reasons?
In other words, I don’t think he meant that a bound and determined Congress couldn’t impeach someone for those reasons, but that they ought to feel guilty about it – perhaps feel too guilty to actually go through with it.
Please note that he wrote that back in 1974, long before the Clinton presidency, and that he died in 2001, long before the Trump presidency. Do we know if he wrote an update on his views on impeachment during the time of the Clinton hearings?
We’ve been over this so many times I’m surprised you’re still asking this question, and making the false claim you made earlier. In fact, you contradict your earlier statement with the correct answer where I added emphasis. If you want to know the history of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, start with the article in wikipedia. It’s quite good.
As noted, impeachment has happened in the US for things that were not crimes, so it’s established that an actual crime need not be committed.
Note that one of the proposed articles of impeachment against Clinton was that he failed to uphold certain campaign promises. That one didn’t make it out of committee.
If failing to carry out campaign promises was a crime there’d be a lot of politicians doing time.
It’s a Wikipedia article not something from a legal journal. But I’ll take it as a cite.
Did you notice the part where it said there have been different definitions of what constitute high crimes? Which is the point I have been making.
Unless you can point to a Supreme Court decision that establishes a definition for what a high crime is under American law, I’ll stand with saying it’s an open question.
But the Supreme Court can’t do that. The Supreme Court deciding what is impeachable would be as effectual as the Supreme Court declaring war on Bhutan. That power simply belongs elsewhere.
The only places that can decide what is a high crime and misdemeanor are the bodies charged with the “sole Power of Impeachment” and the “sole Power to try all Impeachments.”