# "High crimes and misdemeanors". What's a misdemeanor?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 21, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980 "2006-01-21T13:12:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/1 "2006-01-21T13:12:27Z")
What exactly were the founding fathers getting at when they said the President could be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors? Did misdemeanor have the same definition back then, i.e. a crime of trivial nature not requiring a particularly harsh sentence?
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### Author:  [@Booker57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Booker57)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/2 "2006-01-21T14:46:53Z")
Sex is a misdemeanor. The more I miss it, the meaner I get.
I’ll be here all week, tip your waitress.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/3 "2006-01-21T15:24:04Z")
> [@Booker57](#):
>
> I’ll be here all week, tip your waitress.
It’s “Try the fish, tip your waitress. I’ll be here all week!” 🙂
Now back to the OP. A misdemeanor is one of those vauge, open statements that the Constitution is so good at providing. Perhaps it had a distinct meaning to the framers, but they didn’t provide a glossary to go along with the Constitution so thier intent is left up to interpetation. Can you get enough people concerned and raising a fuse over a certain incident. Then that’s a misdemeanor. Is it against a specific law for a married leader to have consensual sex with an intern? Well perhaps not specifically, but it is an abuse of power and it makes for all sorts of nasty headlines and interfers with the operation of the US government. That makes it a misdemeanor in a lot of peoples books (but not mine 😉 ).
I’ll be here all week!
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/4 "2006-01-21T15:41:15Z")
From [Merriam-Webster Online](http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/misdemeanor)
> [@](#):
>
> Main Entry: mis·de·mean·or
> Pronunciation: -di-'mE-n&r
> Function: noun
> 1 : a crime less serious than a felony
> 2 : MISDEED
Not much help is it.
This has been discussed around here before and the generally accepted answer seems to be that “high crimes and misdemeanors” means whatever Congress says it means. As one doper put it long ago (paraphrasing from memory), “if Congress wants to impeach the president because his tie clashes with his jacket they can do it.” Since there is no appeal to another/higher authority when an impeachment is handed down and a trial ensues it literally is whatever Congress decides.
Blowjob from intern = impeachable.
Lying to Congress to take the country to war = is there anthing else Congress can help you with
Go figure :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@M.Meursault](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M.Meursault)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/5 "2006-01-21T16:33:10Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> Blowjob from intern = impeachable.
Clinton wasn’t impeached for a blowjob from an intern; he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice.
To echo what **Whack-a-Mole** said, “high crimes and misdemeanors” does in fact mean whatever Congress says it means. This will, of course, lead to different interpretations at different times so a good rule of thumb is that the definition for “high crimes & misdemeanors” is whatever definition is political advantageous.
I do, however, wonder what a strict constructionist’s take on this phrase would be. Would “high crimes” essentially be treasonous crimes? And would “misdemeanors” mean what it means to the rest of us, i.e. parking tickets and the like? I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/6 "2006-01-21T16:51:37Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> From [Merriam-Webster Online](http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/misdemeanor)
>
> Not much help is it.
>
> This has been discussed around here before and the generally accepted answer seems to be that “high crimes and misdemeanors” means whatever Congress says it means. As one doper put it long ago (paraphrasing from memory), “if Congress wants to impeach the president because his tie clashes with his jacket they can do it.” Since there is no appeal to another/higher authority when an impeachment is handed down and a trial ensues it literally is whatever Congress decides.
>
> Blowjob from intern = impeachable.
> Lying to Congress to take the country to war = is there anthing else Congress can help you with
>
> Go figure :rolleyes:
You know, I didn’t like Clinton, but I was not in favor of impeachment. However, all 4 [articles](http://www.mrdata.net/Impeach/articles.htm) of Clinton’s impeachment referred to perjury or obstruction of justice. Blowjobs were not mentioned. You complain about Bush lying, but you are pretty cavalier about it yourself.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/7 "2006-01-21T16:55:00Z")
Blackstone’s [commentary](http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-401.htm) on the meaning of “misdemeanor” in British law during the Eighteenth Century:
> [@](#):
>
> 1. A CRIME, or misdemeanor, is an act committed, or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it. This general definition comprehends both crimes and misdemeanors; which, properly speaking, are mere synonymous terms: though in common usage, the word “crimes” is made to denote such offenses as are of a deeper and more atrocious dye; while smaller faults, and omissions of less consequence, are comprised under the gentler name of misdemeanors only.
So the usage was similar to today, although perhaps less precise.
The complete phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors”–in which “high” may or may not modify misdemeanors as well as crimes–also appears earlier in the context of English impeachments, but its origins shed little light on its interpretation. As Buckner Melton explains in _The First Impeachment: The Constitution’s Framers and the Case of Senator William Blount_:
> [@](#):
>
> The phrase . . . in fact has an uncertain history. Different scholars place the time of its first use as early as 1386 and as late as 1642. The meaning of the term as used in English law is also in doubt. . . . Regarding the English usage, the only thing that is clear is that little or no agreement exists.
So there you have it. Big help, right?
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/8 "2006-01-21T17:19:09Z")
According to Gerald Ford as he was trying to impeach Justice Douglas, “an impeachable offence is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
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### Author:  [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/9 "2006-01-21T17:25:03Z")
No, I think that it’s pretty clear to me now. I just wanted to make sure that the impeachment clause was as generalized as I thought it was. That being said, I don’t think the President can be impeached for making unpopular decisions or being in opposition to the majority party in Congress. He has to actually have committed an illegal action.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/10 "2006-01-21T18:15:11Z")
> [@Stentor 2.5](#):
>
> He has to actually have committed an illegal action.
Scholars don’t even agree on that much. Sixteen persons have been impeached in American history (only two were Presidents), and the charges as drawn by the House have often included a mix of indictable and non-indictable offenses.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase was impeached in 1804 for excessive partisanship on the bench, but he was acquitted by the Senate. One can use the fact that the House impeached him as an argument that persons can be impeached for non-indictable offenses, or one can use the Senate’s acquittal as an argument that such charges will not and should not be sustained.
In more recent times, the House has tended to impeach for indictable offenses only. One problem with adopting this as a requirement, however, is that a President might pardon every federal criminal, veto every appopriation bill and shut down the government, or re-deploy the entire American military to American Samoa for a pig roast. None of these things would violate law, and all would be within the President’s constitutional powers, but they might well be grounds for removal from office.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-whats-a-misdemeanor/340980/11 "2006-01-21T18:41:18Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#):
>
> Scholars don’t even agree on that much. Sixteen persons have been impeached in American history (only two were Presidents), and the charges as drawn by the House have often included a mix of indictable and non-indictable offenses.
Look at the case of Judge Mark Delahay
In Delahay’s case is that actions in his “private” life were considered impeachable. Some may argue that Justice Pickering’s case introduced his private life as an impeachable offense as he was called “a man of loose morals and intemperate habits” in the articles of impeachment. In Delahay’s case, the impeachment charged him with drinking “on and off” the bench, while Pinkering was impeached for merely being drunk on the bench.
Technically, Delahay was never impeached. His situation was similar to President Richard Nixon in that the articles of impeachment had been passed in committee but were not voted on by the House. Delahay resigned and the House dropped the impeachment procedures.