What is Impeachment?

by Theresa Gamble

With all the buzz around Washington D.C. these past few months, the

word impeachment has been thrown around often enough that it got me

wondering: how does an elected official get impeached from office? Which

also brought up the questions of: Have any presidents been impeached; does

impeachment remove them from office immediately; what are grounds for

impeachment? And most of all, how long does it take to impeach someone?

I decided the best way to satisfy my own curiosity was to look it all up

and summarize it in a way that everyone could understand. By everyone,

I’m not just referring to the people who graduated college with a law

degree; I mean people with only a sixth grade education should understand

this. After all, children are the future, and it’s never too early for them

to learn important information that should remain relevant throughout

their lifetime and for generations to come. Not saying it will; after all, Ben

Franklin himself, once told someone that we have a republic, as long as we

can keep it. Meaning that it has been up to the generations of Americans to

protect our freedoms, ensure that the constitution is upheld, and remove

mistakes that could cost us our liberty and freedoms. This brings right back

to impeachment, the removal of mistakes in our government.

No President has been removed from office due to impeachment.

Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton are the only two Presidents to actually be

impeached; neither was removed from office due to the impeachment. John

Tyler was on the verge of impeachment, however not enough Congressmen

voted in favor of impeachment. Richard Nixon was about to be impeached

because of Watergate when he resigned.

In the House of Representatives; the House Judiciary Committee

decides if a President should be impeached. In the case of impeachment, the

Judiciary Committee creates a formal inquiry for the impeachment. Then

the Judiciary Committee will write Articles of Impeachment, which state

whether or not the impeachment is warranted and why. If the impeachment

is warranted the Full House (everyone in the House of Representatives) will

debate and vote on each Article of Impeachment. If any one of the Articles

of Impeachment is approved by a majority vote, the President is then

impeached. But not removed from office.

Being impeached is like the President being arrested, only his trial goes

to the Senate. Before the trial, the Articles of Impeachment are received

from the House of Representatives and the Senate formulates rules and

procedures for holding a trial. During the trial, the President is represented

by his lawyers, a group of House members serve as prosecutors and the

Senate, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, is the jury. In a

private session, the Senate debates a verdict, in an open session the Senate

will vote on a verdict. A conviction requires a 2/3 vote in favor or more.

Then the Senate will vote to remove the President from office. They can also,

if they so choose to, vote to prohibit the President from holding any public

office in the future.

Impeachment is a long process and for a reason, if a President was

impeached every time he went against popular opinion, there would have

been more than two Presidents impeached. Impeachable offenses are;

treason, bribery or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. As stated in

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander

Hamilton defined High Crimes and Misdemeanors as; breaking the law,

abuse of power and violation of public trust. Congress has issued Articles

of Impeachment for acts in three areas; exceeding the constitutional bounds

of the powers of the office, behavior grossly incompatible with the proper

function and purpose of the office, and employing the power of the office

for an improper purpose or for personal gain.

When you look at past Presidents, the current President, and future

Presidents; I think it would be in the interest of our nation to remember the

process of impeachment - as it’s very easy to make a mistake, but not so easy

to correct it.