Buck Should Stop in the House

As long as the republic endures, there will be vigorous debate about what the Founders meant impeachment to be. But the arguments for impeachment being advanced by some leaders in the House are a clear case of what impeachment most certainly should not be.

Impeachment should not be a tool for registering partisan pique. It should not be considered akin to a grand jury’s indictment. It should not be an expression of disapproval punted to the Senate for disposal. It should not be a device for partisan self-inoculation. It should not be an exercise in shoring up your political base. It should not primarily be an instrument to punish officeholders, but instead is intended to protect the public weal.

A partisan drumbeat is attempting to assuage members of the House that they have what amounts to a “free” vote on impeachment. In fact, the House vote is anything but free of consequences for the nation and our institutions of government.

House leaders lining up impeachment votes are calming members by telling them that they are acting only as a grand jury, making no independent verdict themselves about whether the president should be removed from office. Members have been assured that voting to impeach is cost-free because the Senate will bail them out.

With these as their incentives, House members are being encouraged to unleash the arduous process of a protracted Senate trial that could preoccupy the Senate, the president and the chief justice for a good part of the next year. Just as history has judged harshly those “Radical Republicans” who in 1868 launched the wayward impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, those intent on flexing Congress’ impeachment muscle now must take responsibility for the consequences of their actions and what could amount to yet another government shutdown.

The Constitution does not intend the process of impeachment to be used as a device for venting disapproval but reserves it for the most serious circumstances, when a duly elected president’s continued tenure in office cannot be tolerated. The Framers set the bar extremely high, understanding that anything less would diminish the presidency and upset the inspired system of checks and balances that guarantee our freedoms.

During Watergate, a bipartisan majority of the House Judiciary Committee concluded that the president could not be impeached on less than “clear and convincing” evidence. Today a lower standard is advanced, corresponding to the grand jury standard of “probable cause,” as if the House were nothing more than a 435-member grand jury with the limited role of rubber-stamping Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s accusations and shipping them off to the Senate for trial.

This is constitutionally unsound and dangerous. No responsible prosecutor would go before a grand jury for an indictment or bring a charge to trial to send a message or score political points. Threatening to override a national election by means of an impeachment is a momentous undertaking.

Those who rush to lower the bar for impeachment will set a dangerous precedent for decades to come. Even the most popular presidents have political opponents and resourceful critics. Such a downward spiral inevitably would tempt future congresses to launch impeachment investigations against presidents from the opposing party.

Still others argue it is a free vote because the Senate would never be so foolish as to convict. Those who vote for impeachment relying on the Senate to save the country from their excess, abdicate their constitutional duties. Just as voting to declare war and voting to amend the Constitution are fundamental responsibilities, so too, is any vote to impeach a president.

Some among the House Republican leadership are urging members to vote to impeach the president as an expression of disapproval of his conduct. There is the echo here of the partisan expressions of some of these same leaders who have sought to intimidate our independent judiciary by threats of impeachment. It is ironic that those who are most intent on having Congress voice a collective judgment of disapproval of the president’s personal conduct have been those who have worked the hardest to close avenues for a censure resolution. They advance a take-it-or-leave-it strategy of impeachment, or nothing.

In “The Guns of August,” Barbara Tuchman’s gripping account of how the world teetered into the catastrophe of WWI, she recalled a former German chancellor’s question to his successor, “How did it all happen?” “Ah, if only we knew,” was the reply. Future generations may ask the same question of us as they ponder not only how but also why the sorting out of this episode of admitted presidential misconduct was handled so poorly.