What you are missing is that opponents of the President, passionate enough to want impeachment, will always perceive he or she to have committed not only misdemeanors, but what they regard as high crimes. Only the President’s defenders will think that the reason for the impeachment is something trivial. So the high crimes requirement is no barrier, and doesn’t change your 100%.
Who would be the president while this court case was going forward? If a vice-president on the same ticket as the president, there might not be much problem. As a party loyalist, the vice-president would bow out. But if the new president has sharp policy differences from the old one, watch out! Due to varying interpretations of whether the supremes can overrule an impeachment (see this thread!), there would be multiple pretenders to the throne AKA a constitutional crisis.
In any one generation, such a crisis is unlikely. But it may well eventually occur. I hope we could then replace our revolutionary constitution with a parliamentary system of responsible government.
And then, getting back to the OP, our foreign minister will be able to conduct negotiations without risk of congressional sabotage.
So you do believe that the constitution can be scrapped, any time someone’s (whose?) common sense contradicts it?
(This is, of course, not at all your actual belief…but what you wrote is also, obviously, not the belief of anyone participating in this discussion. This sort of hyperbole is entirely pointless. You would get a lot farther restricting yourself to rebutting points people have actually made.)
When we’ve gotten to the point where people are strenuously arguing that it is correct to impeach someone because he’s Catholic, just because the procedures were followed, in my mind we’ve crossed over from a nation with the rule of law where things don’t work out perfect all the time into a bizarro world of Milford-like psychological experiments on lawyers: “the outcome is proper because the law requires it. You must continue delivering the electric shocks!”
I totally agree that the idea of impeaching someone simply because of their religious beliefs is such a strained and outlandish scenario that it is barely worth discussing. But in my opinion, subordinating one’s opposition to blatant discrimination by the government that shouldn’t be tolerated under any circumstance (essentially a legal coup based on one person’s religion not being favored) to whether or not a certain legal process is followed to the letter is just, well, gutless. If Congress were to go nuts and dispose of a president for the most extreme, irrational, bigoted, and blatantly prejudiced reasons, I would hope that most Americans would not simply say: “Eh, nothing we can do. The proper paperwork was filed. I guess we will just wait half a decade or more until elections produce some significant changes in both chambers of the legislative branch!”
We’re not discussing whether it’s correct or not. We’re discussing whether it’s Constitutional. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our Constitution sucks in a lot of ways. But we’re stuck with it until we change it.
The trouble is, if you empower someone (who?) to act outside the constitution, in order to reverse a really bad decision…where does it stop?
Why couldn’t the Republicans use this exact same process to reverse the Affordable Care Act, because (to their minds) it is extreme, irrational, bigoted, and blatantly prejudiced.
You’re essentially trying to argue for a new policy or practice to be added to the constitution, and you aren’t going through the formal amendment process. You seem to want some sort of language like, “All procedures and policies have to make good sense.” Well, okay, that would be nice, but…
Let’s use the amendment process, rather than just making up new powers, and,
How do we define “good sense?” What specific body, committee, or branch do you want to trust with a universal override, based on so loose a franchise?
Each branch of government COULD do crazy, ridiculous things. Congress could declare war on Canada in order to make it change its flag. I’m not worried that we need to empower the SCOTUS to prevent that from happening.
Hamilton had honor enough to assent to a duel with pistols and then shoot wide. Burr had honor enough to challenge Hamilton to a duel and mean it. Honor means different things to different persons.
Could Congress pass a meaningful law, strictly defining the terms? Suppose they wrote it up: “A high crime consists of X, Y, Z,” and “An impeachable misdemeanor consists of T, U, V.” Assuming the President doesn’t veto it, it would become law…
It’s sort of like the Federal Law that defined the Presidential order of succession, or some of the details of Federal Election law. Is it likely such a defining (and limiting) law would be constitutional?
I do not see any need for it, but it would help address the concerns raised here. If a large number of Representatives and Senators shared those concerns, would this be a reasonable response?
Or would the Supreme Court view it the same way they viewed their attempt, back in the Clinton days, to create a “line item veto” by writing Congressional rules that broke bills up into sections – and the Court said no, that Congress did not have the right to surrender its power in that way?
I disagree. Congress has the sole power to decide if a President will be impeached if he commits an impeachable offense and Congress has the sole power to conduct an impeachment. But Congress does not have the sole power to decide what an impeachable offense is.
Determining what a high crime of misdemeanor is would be a matter of interpreting the text of the Constitution. And our legal system is pretty clear on which branch of the government has the final word on interpreting the Constitution.
“Deciding whether a matter has in any measure been committed by the Constitution to another branch of government, or whether the action of that branch exceeds whatever authority has been committed, is itself a delicate exercise in constitutional interpretation, and is a responsibility of this Court as ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.”
That brings up its own constitutional issues, though. Some believe that members of Congress are not “officers” of the United States and so aren’t qualified to be designated acting president by Congress.
The presidential succession act has never been tested in court and it’s far from certain what would be the outcome. We all assume that the Speaker is next after the vice president but what would the Supreme Court say if it should come down to it? Does the Congress have the right to dictate the order of succession?
Anyway, if we might return to the topic of the thread- The Senate has disgraced itself with this amateurish and childish letter. They have succeeded in giving the Iranian government the moral high ground, which is generally not easy to do.
In Nixon v US, White’s concurring opinion discusses the difference between the “sole” power of impeachment as compared to Art I, sec 1 which gives “all” legislative powers to the Congress. Yet courts regularly intrude when Congress exceeds constitutional bounds on legislation. It doesn’t mean the courts micromanage legislation. It doesn’t mean they don’t give broad discretion to Congress in various areas.
So, two questions: what in the Constitution gives the courts the power to limit Congress’ ownership of all the legislative power, and why does that not extend to impeachment?
Secondly, if Congress passed a law stating that no Catholics could hold any Federal office, we all know that it would be struck down for multiple constitutional reasons. But you hold that impeaching all Catholics in Federal office is a constitutional and valid exercise of that power? I’d like folks to explain their thinking on that one.
Impeachment is simply a resolution passed by the House. It has no effect on the President. Is there any precedent for the SCOTUS to rule on an action by the House?
He has to be convicted by the Senate w/ a 2/3 majority for there to be any effect. What makes you think a 5/9 (55%) vote by the SCOTUS is a better protection than a 2/3 (67%) vote in the Senate? If we get to the point that 2/3 of the Senate will throw out the president for being a Catholic, we have bigger problems than anything solvable by the SCOTUS.
Oh, ferchrissakes, I’m using “impeachment” as the catch-all term for the whole process. Nit-picking, especially when impeachment is a commonly used term for the whole process.
I contend that the courts, in extraordinary circumstances, could operate as a check against an impeachment process that is at odds with the text of the Constitution, as did White and Souter in their concurring opinions to Nixon. The court may not be a guarantee of “better protection,” as you put it; but then again, no check and balance is a guarantee of better protection against unconstitutional behavior. Don’t you agree?
No, it’s an important distinction. Suppose the House were to vote to censure the president. Do you think that should be reviewable by the SCOTUS? Besides. others in this thread are clearly arguing about the actions of the House, not the Senate. And impeachment requires a simple majority whereas conviction in the Senate requires a supermajority.
The check is already there-- a supermajority of the Senate is a check on the House.
QFT.
Did President Clinton commit the crimes that he was impeached for? Yes.
Were the Democrats hypocritical in the standards set for conviction for Judge Nixon and President Clinton? Yes.
Did President Clinton admit that he lied? Yes
Did any of that make a difference? No. The Pubs were still the bad guys.