The Chief Justice presides over the Senate proceedings, and can make rulings favorable to the President. Other than that, it’s none of the Court’s business, no matter how much they might wish it to be.
That’s an ironic phrase to bring up in this discussion. If Congress truly went bonkers and impeached President Christie for being Catholic, in contravention of the impeachment clause and the no religious test for office clause, Justices White and Souders suggest that the courts may have to step in to stop such a wanton abuse of the Constitution. I could see President Christie suing, and perhaps the Court would agree that The Congressional power to impeach can’t contravene the religious test portion of the Constitution. If two branches reject the constitutionality of the impeachment, how will Congress enforce its impeachment?
The Clinton case wasn’t extreme in its disregard for the Constitution. It was clearly a controversial case within what I believe is an acceptable reading of the Consitution. The courts have no business getting involved in such as case. I can see them getting involved in the Christie hypothetical I’ve mentioned a few times, and ruling that the Congress exceeded its power of impeachment because the action clearly undermines other provisions of the Constitution.
Update: Lindsey Graham says there’s now 66 votes in the Senate on requiring that the Senate approve the Iran deal:
http://www.teaparty.org/graham-weve-got-66-now-override-obama-veto-iran-deal-approval-88965/
Yeah, I know it’s a Tea party site, but Republicans talk to Tea Party sites and Graham says they have the votes. So we’ll see.
I don’t think the power to impeach is without limit. The Constitution says that a President may be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The Supreme Court has not (as far as I know) set a standard on what a high crime is. But it has the power to do so: interpreting the Constitution is the role of the Supreme Court.
So if Congress impeached a President for wearing the wrong tie, or belonging to a religion it didn’t like, or for belonging to the political party out of power, the Supreme Court could step in a rule that these are not valid reasons for impeaching a President and overturn the impeachment as unconstitutional.
The Court could even theoretically go further. Let’s say the President was arrested and convicted of some crime - let’s use DUI for example. And Congress impeached him following his conviction. The Supreme Court could rule that while DUI is a crime, it does not interpret it as a high crime.
But then the House could impeach those members of the Supreme Court it doesn’t like. Can the S.C. override an impeachment vote that targets them, themselves?
Then the Congress would try to write all new laws with the clause disallowing the S.C. to review it, and the S.C. would declare the clause unco, and where does it all stop?
At that point, the constitution would be effectively dead, and we might as well ask the Army to run things a while.
In such scenarios, the Constitutional crisis would have been created by Congress ignoring the text and limits on its powers, so one shouldn’t blame resulting chaos on the institutions trying to re-inject sanity into the government.
I’ll also say that in the DUI scenario, while I would disagree with impeachment, I would prefer the courts stay out of it. There was a crime, which is the fundamental requirement for impeachment, and I would give Congress a broad path in deciding whether it was serious or not.
The Court has already confronted this question, and ruled that it was non-justicible: only the Senate, and not the courts, had the power to determine the outcome of an impeachment process, which is political and not justicible.
In U.S. v. Nixon, the Supreme Court said:
A nitpick, but the case you’re referring to is Nixon v. United States not United States v. Nixon. This caused me some confusion when I tried to read the ruling you were quoting.
Having done so, I don’t think the door on this issue is closed as completely as you’re saying. Justice Rehnquist made a point out of referring back to Powell v. McCormack and explaining how the two cases were distinguishable even though they covered similar issues. I think some future Justice could do the same with regards to Nixon v. United States and issue a decision that is distinguishably separate. The Court could rule that Nixon gave the Senate the sole power to try an impeachment and that the Court could not involve itself in an impeachment. But this still leaves open the possibility that the Court could declare a potential impeachment was unconstitutional on the grounds I discussed. This would not contradict Nixon because the Court wouldn’t be interfering with the trying of an impeachment as there would be no impeachment for it to interfere with.
A narrow point perhaps but one I think the Court could adopt if it wished. And one which I don’t think is inconceivable. The Court has generally avoided declaring there are matter completely beyond its scope.
Ironically, United States v. Nixon covered these issues. It said that while each branch of the government has the power to interpret the Constitution, one branch must have the final word on interpretation and that branch is the Supreme Court. United States v. Nixon also made a point about the problems of one branch asserting too much power over the others - in this case, the President’s use of executive privilege placing him beyond the power of Congress or the courts. But in a hypothetical case of Congress being able to impeach a President for literally anything without the Court being able to rule on the subject would be another example of the same imbalance in powers between the branches.
Please quote the part of the constitution that gives Impeachment power to the House. The answer to your nitpick lies therein.
So you do believe the Constitution is a suicide pact, in which the letter of the law must be adhered to, common sense be damned?
No, I do not believe that interpreting the word “sole” to mean “sole” is equivalent to a suicide pact. Why would I?
To use a hypothetical, let’s say the President figured out some Constitutional process by which to disband the courts or Congress at his will, and the text of the Consitution would appear to support a contention that the President’s action would be unreviewable. Maybe it has something to do with the commander in chief clause, if you wish.
In this virtually unimaginably unlikely case, I think that the principle that branches aren’t allowed to carry out coups through an abuse of constitutional powers is more important than the limitation on the powers of the other branches. In other words, if one branch of grabs power in an extreme, aggressive and irresponsible way, the other branches don’t have to lay back and think of Madison while they get screwed.
We have had 200 years to discover such a problem, and it hasn’t come up. There’s no Art. 8 written in invisible ink.
But the subject discussion is not extreme. The basis of ultimate sovereign power is the people. Congress most directly represents the People. They have the power to remove thePresident without justifying it to another branch.
The ability of the Congress to carry out a coup through impeachment is largely reduced by the 12th amendment, which pretty much guarantees that both the President and Vice President are of the same party, meaning that if the President is impeached, his successor will probably share his same general political orientation.
Let’s imagine that Congress decided to remove a president because he wore the wrong color ties*. Let’s also assume that said president was NOT generally thought of as deserving to be removed from power by most Americans. The correction comes in the next Congressional elections. There are enough checks and balances that we don’t need to disregard the constitution instead of changing it when we think some part of it amounts to “a suicide pact”.
*Which, of course, is a scenario so far removed from reality that we shouldn’t even consider it as possible.
Concur.
If Congress could remove a President for any reason, the odds of having the Speaker be the next President approach 100%.
But Congress can next remove the VP, and then the Speaker, presumably a member of the faction which did the removing, will be President.
Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
My nitpick was that Bricker attributed a quote to United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) when it was actually from Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993). Not a big issue. The two cases obviously have similar titles. But I was clearing it up for anyone who wanted to check the sources.
Let me ask you this. Look at these two statements:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Do you feel they are legally identical or do you feel they have separate legal meanings?
My argument is that these two statements are not legally equivalent. Congress does not have an absolute power to impeach (as you are arguing). Congress has a power to impeach under certain circumstances. And these circumstances are explicitly listed in the Constitution. The circumstances are treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
If Congress was attempting to impeach a President outside of those circumstances, it would be acting beyond its power to impeach. And the Court would have the power to intervene or overturn Congress’ actions as being unconstitutional.