I know that the House of Representatives votes on articles of impeachment to present to the Senate, which then hears testimony in the style of a trial, even though this is not a criminal proceeding. The officeholder is removed if 2/3 of the Senate votes to convict.
But how does this work if there are multiple charges in the articles of impeachment? Say that President Leghorn is being impeached for mopery and dopery. Does impeachment come down to a single ‘total yes’ decision, or does the Senate vote on the individual charges separably? Suppose that 40% of the Senators think that Leghorn was guilty of mopery, and a nonoverlapping 40% thinks that he was guilty of dopery. Does this mean that 80% have voted to convict (as though it’s a single yes/no decision), or that 40% voted to impeach on charge of mopery and 40% voted to impeach on charge of dopery, with no resulting supermajority and no conviction, even though 80% think that Leghorn should be removed?
The Clinton impeachment had two charges, with voting pretty much along party lines: 55/100 voting for impeachment on charge A (perjury) and 50/100 voting for impeachment on charge B (obstruction of justice). Because of the party-line voting, though, only 55/100 voted for (A or B), meaning no supermajority anyway. But what if all the Republicans had voted for A and all the Democrats had voted for B? Andrew Johnson’s impeachment was on eleven charges, and before the proceedings were halted three charges failed to make the 2/3 majority by a single vote - again with the same senators voting to convict on all three charges.
From a strategic standpoint, why not offer a single charge, making it a yes/no vote on whether to kick the officeholder out or not? Call it ‘perjury and/or obstruction of justice’, since this isn’t a criminal trial?
Each article of impeachment is a vote unto itself. It only takes a yes vote on a single article of impeachment to proceed with a trial in the Senate.
If there are multiple articles of impeachment that each individually fail to garner sufficient votes then they fail. There is no combining of votes to show that a majority wanted the individual impeached for something.
Similarly in the Senate it is necessary that an individual article of impeachment receive the necessary 2/3 vote to remove the individual from office. Again, it is not sufficient to say that 60 senators voted to convict on charge #1 and the non-overlapping other 40 senators voted to convict on charge #2. In such scenario all 100 senators may have voted to convict on some charge but no single charge garnered sufficient votes to remove the person from office and the result is an acquittal.
What I’m trying to say is that when there are multiple charges, it is in theory possible for votes to be split such that there is not a supermajority for any one charge, but a supermajority thinks the officeholder should be convicted for something. Since this isn’t a criminal trial, how would this play out? The Clinton and Johnson examples just show that this situation has not arisen in past impeachments.
Imagine a criminal trial where everyone on the jury thinks the defendant did something, but they just can’t agree on what it was.
In real life, I thought that about Michael Jackson.
In practice there would probably be one charge so broad (or so vague) that everyone who thought he was guilty of something could probably be convinced to vote Guilty.
Then the respondent is acquitted and remains in office. Although impeachment isn’t a criminal proceeding, it retains many of the forms and elements of a criminal trial, in that the impeachment must allege “high crimes and misdemeanors”, both sides can call witnesses, the Senators are sworn to provide impartial justice, and the verdict on each charge takes the form of “guilty” or “not guilty”. And as in any criminal proceeding, the “prosecution” (the House) must allege specific charges against which the respondent can reasonably provide a defense, not a catchall charge that “he might have done this or he might have done that and we don’t like him”.
There is no tribunal system that works that way. It would not make any sense.
In an impeachment trial, the Senate essentially serves the function of a jury. Their job is to determine whether the evidence presented meets the definition of each charge in the Articles of Impeachment passed by the House. If none of the charges are proven, there is no secret sauce by which votes on disparate charges can be combined to reach a guilty verdict. For one thing, what would the person be guilty of?
Assuming that at least one charge get’s a 2/3 guilty verdict; at what precise moment would Leghorn cease to be President? Does it happen as soon as the 67th Senator votes guilty, or when all the votes (on all the charges) have been cast? One can imagine a scenario when President Leghorn is say spending his final hours in office frantically pardoning close associates and family members.
In real life, after the mopery article fails to pass, some of those who voted guilty on mopery but believe him innocent of dopery are going to vote guilty on dopery anyway, because they want him removed due to all the mopery.
After all votes on all charges have been cast. You can see here in the Congressional Record how the process worked in the 1989 impeachment of Judge Alcee Hastings. The Senate voted on all of the articles first, even though, after the first conviction, everything else was just for the record and had no impact. After they were done voting the presiding officer (here the president pro tempore, but in a Presidential impeachment it would be the Chief Justice) addressed the Senate:
Does it happen as soon as the 67th Senator votes guilty, or when all the votes (on all the charges) have been cast? One can imagine a scenario when President Leghorn is say spending his final hours in office frantically pardoning close associates and family members.