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Jacob Sorett – Article 1 Section 4 The Elections Clause

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The Elections Clause was made to solely manage the election of the House and Senate, not the president. According to, Micheal T. Morley and Franita Tolson, it was written to ensure that all states hold elections for Congress and that their procedures for said elections are fair.

 The main purpose of the text is to balance the power of the state and of Congress in voting for representatives. More specifically, the clause is known to establish that each state can set its own conditions in which voting takes place, but that these conditions can be lawfully changed by Congress. 

Even with a common interpretation of the election clause, there are several divergent perspectives about its contents. An example of the above would be how some states more widely distribute power and create “independent redistricting commissions”. This was done in order to prevent the division of voters and keep current members of Congress in their offices. This viewpoint includes the idea of “independent redistricting commissions” being ideal for the Elections Clause for it displays that there is a fairer way to hold elections than what the clause outlines. An example specifically in the court would be Cook v. Gralike. Don Gralike came before the court and argued for the Congressional Term Limit Amendment. It permitted for warnings to be written next to the names of previously elected representatives who opposed Congressional term limits.

However, the supreme court declared that the Elections Clause prevents the state from doing so due to how the amendment is clearly biased towards candidates that support term limits. This serves as a perfect example of different interpretations of the election clause. From the perspective of the court, the Elections Clause should protect members of Congress by preventing the state from going against officials opposing term limits. From the perspective of Don Gralike, the clause allows for the state to still express the manner in which the process is done, and this manner he believes should include warnings next to candidates’ names.

Another case where the Elections Clause was debated was U.S. Term Limits, Inc, v. Thornton. The side of Thorton argued that states should be able to neglect to print the names of candidates who had served in Congress for three terms. Again the supreme court prevented this and declared that the Elections Clause requires all candidates to be displayed on ballots. The supreme court had yet again ruled in favor of Congress and its present officers, once again displaying the court’s interpretation of the clause. 

I find the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the election clause to be more reasonable and persuasive. The Elections Clause’s ultimate goal is to give Congress the power to keep the state in check, preventing unfair and corrupt voting procedures. With more lenient interpretations this is not the case, and this includes arguments such as the one in Cook v. Gralike. States shouldn’t be allowed to make such changes that are clearly in favor of specific candidates, and I think that the view of the supreme court entails this point. If I were to amend this clause, I would allow Congress to alter where the votes are made, as the Elections Clause currently bands this. The state could manage to make change the voting turnout by setting the location of the ballots to specific places. For example, if the state of New York changed all of its ballot locations to extremely far upstate, that would not reflect the vast majority of New York’s votes. This is because most residents don’t live upstate. I think Congress should be able to regulate this to ensure the right amount of voter turnout. 

Augie Emmanuel Article 2, Section 4: Impeachment Clause

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On July 4th, 1776, the United States of America announced to the world their independence from Britain. However, America’s path to the country it is today was not finalized right then and there. Instead, it would be another 11 years before the Constitution that is still in place now was written. When the founding fathers met in Philadelphia, 1787, to write the Constitution, they had quite a tall task set out for them. There were many uncertainties centered around the new government of the still young nation and many heated debates. However, one unanimous agreement was that the new form of government had to look much different from Britain’s. So instead of having a monarchy, America was assembled into a democratic republic. The government was divided into three branches; the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The executive branch was of course the president of the United States. It was extremely important that the Constitution had measures in place in order to make sure that not one person could possess too much power and become a monarchial dictator. This is why checks and balances can be seen throughout Article 2 of the Constitution, and the whole document for that matter. One of the largest and most important checks and balances was the Impeachment Clause in Article 2, Section 4. 

Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution, also known as the Impeachment Clause, established the grounds by which a President, Vice President, and other civil officers could be impeached and removed from their positions. If they were to be convicted of treason, bribery, and other “high crimes and misdemeanors” they could be removed from office. However, since there is no definition of high crimes and misdemeanors in the Constitution, its interpretation has been subject to debate between many historians. 

One of the early drafts of the Constitution wrote that Congress had the ability to impeach officers for “maladministration.” However, James Madison was famously opposed to this idea because he felt the term was too vague. He believed that the word maladministration would allow for impeachment without any real reason.  With this being said, one matter of debate was whether the Constitution should have had more specific wording in what could be considered as an impeachable offense. Chief Justice John Marshall famously argued that since the Constitution was written to endure for many years, its language had to be vague. The Constitution had to be ready for anything Americans threw at it. The founding fathers certainly could not predict the future — if they had been specific in their language in the Impeachment Clause, it is likely that an official today could evade punishment today due to some small technicality, or modern interpretation. 

I personally believe it is important that the Constitution remains vague. It is impossible to write a document designed to be used for centuries with extremely specific details since standards and ideals will inevitably change over time. Additionally, I do believe there are some problems with the Impeachment Clause that could be amended. While three presidents have been impeached in US history, zero have been removed from office. In many scenarios, political parties can get in the way of convicting a civil officer. A senator is often unlikely to vote in favor of impeaching another member of the same party as them. This senator may rely on the same supporters as the person they are impeaching, and voting to remove them from office could be a huge political risk. Impeachment is a powerful and important tool. It is key in maintaining democracy — this is why the Impeachment Clause should be amended slightly to account for political parties so that officers can still be removed from their position if necessary. 

 

Giselle Barker – Final Constitution Project, Article 2, Section 4

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The second article in the Constitution constrains the elements of the executive branch, which is one of the three established in the Constitution. The fourth section in the article, gives power to the people by allowing impeachment to elected officials, as well as allows the other branches to check the executive system. The section states that reasons for impeachment can be “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, the motivation for including this within the Constitution is to prevent any corruption from taking place in office.

This connects back to the fear that many Americans and public leaders had of undergoing the American Revolution again because of the abuse of power from King George. The common understanding of section 4 is that Congress has the power to vote on the removal of the President, Vice President, or other elected officials.

However, matters of debate on the clarity of this section of the article have been interpreted differently, the particular line “high crimes and Misdemeanors” have been regarded as not specific enough to be a claim. Since high crimes and misdemeanors could include misdemeanors as small as littering to a first-degree misdemeanor charge, many scholars debate that this statement is too vague and could mean that littering could qualify as an impeachable offense.

As an example, scholars use the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1998 when Bill Clinton was being tried under the statement of “high crimes and misdemeanors” after lying under oath about an affair. The question arose of whether or not certain crimes could be an impeachable offense, especially since the misdemeanor occurred under unofficial matters and was heavily based on how protected his private life by lying. This example shows how the statement “misdemeanors” could be confusing and not allow for a filter of what is considered impeachable or not. 

Based on both the common and divergent interpretation, I understand how the language used in the 4th section can come off as confusing and is too vague to be able to cause the impeachment of an office official. An adaptation that I believe would be beneficial would be to add the word first degree misdemeanors instead of just the word misdemeanors. This allows for confusion around the term misdemeanors to be eliminated and stops the idea that the section’s vagueness makes impeachment hard to apply. As well, this adaptation could be very helpful for possible upcoming impeachment trials and save the debate of whether the offense is considered impeachable. 

Article II, Section 4 (Impeachment Clause)-Mira Gulati

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The impeachment clause in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution is one of the most important powers given to Congress. It embodies the key principles of separation of powers and checks and balances embedded in the document. These principles were created by Baron Montesquieu, an Enlightenment thinker, who said that separating the branches and holding each other accountable was essential to preventing abuse of power that denied people their liberty. 

The objective of the impeachment clause was to provide Congress with another safeguard for this abuse of power, stating that “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.”  An earlier draft of the impeachment clause held that officials could be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or maladministration” James Madison and the Philadelphia delegates objected to the wording and said that its obscurity would result in unreasonable impeachments. As a result, the word ‘maladministration’ was removed in favor of ‘other high crimes and Misdemeanors’ With these new revisions, congress instituted a clause that allowed the House of Representatives to bring charges against any official that has committed a crime or worked against the will of the American people. The exclusion of ‘maladministration’ makes it clear that unfitness for the post is not a valid reason for impeachment. However, the full grounds for impeachment are still not clarified with the new phrase and the meaning of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ is still debated today. 

The different interpretations came into play during former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1999. The impeachment arrived after it was revealed that Clinton had lied under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate, however, did not find him guilty of the counts of perjury and obstruction of justice Many Democrats advocated that while Clinton’s behavior was morally punishable, it did not affect the public so it did not constitute impeachment. That it was not a ‘high crime’ On the other side of the aisle, Republicans argued that his actions betrayed the trust of the nation and were therefore liable for conviction. 

The Clinton case raised a lot of questions surrounding the conduct of government officials. Many people wondered whether he set a precedent that only wrongdoing related to the President’s decisions involving the nation would constitute an impeachment. Whether only crimes prosecutable by court apply to the clause or misconduct and dishonor did too. If the original clause is to be maintained, only time and more impeachments will answer it. 

An alternate solution, however, lies in an amendment that would revise the last phrase of the Constitution so that the ‘high’ in ‘high crimes’ is removed. This would help clarify whether any crime that an official commits is applicable for impeachment. It does not make sense to have a range of crimes that an official is allowed to commit as they need to be held to the same standards as everyone else in America. The system of checks and balances that are meant to retain the citizen’s liberty holds no power if they do not.