Something I’ve wondered about from time to time, and the chatter about the Veep and the Plame leak brought it to the fore. Just for clarification, I’m not trying to start a debate about whether Cheney should be impeached; just using that as a jumping -off point for a question on the procedure on trial on impeachment. You want to say Cheney should / should not be impeached, go to GD or the Pit.
Am I reading Article I, s. 3 correctly? If the Reps impeach the Vice-President, does he get to preside at his own Senate trial?
So the Veep has the constitutional right to preside over the Senate. The only exception is when the President is on trial.
Why is there no similar provision for the Chief Justice or the pro tem to preside when the Veep is on trial? Does the Veep get to preside over his own trial?
Actually, no VP has been impeached so the question is open, but there is no reason why a trial of the VP shouldn’t be conducted just like the trial of a president.
Added upon editing:
Actually one good reason the VP doesn’t preside over the impeachment of the president is that he or she might have a vested interest in conviction. When the Constitution was written the candidate who ran second in the election was made VP. In some instances, such as Jefferson and Aaron Burr there was considerable rancor.
The same logic applies to the trial of the VP except he would have an even greater vested interest in the outcome.
I don’t know of any specific examples, but I think the Vice President legally could preside at his own trial the way the wording is constructed right now. Since the exact process of impeachment is somewhat vague, it means that the Senate can (and has) fleshed out some general rules/legislation in regards to how impeachment proceedings are done, and looking in that body of work you may find stipulations that prevent the Vice President from presiding over his own impeachment.
During an impeachment proceeding, it is my understanding that the person who presides (President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Vice President, or the Chief Justice in the case of Presidential impeachment) gets to rule on matters of law and etc., much like a judge in a normal criminal trial. However, unlike a judge in a normal criminal trial, the person presiding over impeachment proceedings can have any of his decisions overturned by a simple majority vote of the Senate (cite.) I think what this would mean, effectively, is that if there was actually an impeachment of a sitting Vice President, with enough muster to actually have a chance of successfully removing said VP (it would require a 2/3 vote for ultimate conviction), then it’d be easy to get 51 Senators to vote down any and all decisions the VP makes while presiding, or basically just telling the VP that they would do so to render his presiding over the process something through which he would be incapable of aiding his own case.
If you read the link you provided (which is one I also used as a cite, although on a slightly different point), it reads:
Note the phrase “presidential impeachment proceedings.” The Chief Justice does not preside over other impeachment proceedings (like those of a federal judge, for example.) So sans a Presidential impeachment, I’m not sure what precedent there would be for using a Chief Justice to preside over the impeachment of someone who is not the President.
Given that absolutely the ONLY difference between impeachment of a federal official (judges included) and the President is the presiding officer, and given that that is the issue up for debate, it would behoove someone to make an argument as to exactly why the Vice-President should not preside at his own impeachment trial.
The answer is obvious, of course: you shouldn’t get to preside over your own trial. One would presume that, in the unlikely course a VP ever gets impeached, and a trial is conducted, the Senate will simply vote to have the President Pro Tempore conduct the trial, if for no other reason than the obvious equitable ones.
The issue having never arisen, it is, of course, an unaswered question.
One great thing about the American system is that if it ever should come to an impeachment trial of the vice president, the scenario proposed by DSYoungEsq will happen automatically and without anyone (outside of a few internet kooks) objecting or obstructing it. That an impeached vice president should sit over his own trial is something that could never happen in America, no matter how many internet conspirators would disagree.
