{"id":368,"date":"2023-06-02T16:10:25","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T16:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/teddy-the-impeachment-clause\/"},"modified":"2023-06-04T14:45:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T14:45:07","slug":"teddy-the-impeachment-clause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/teddy-the-impeachment-clause\/","title":{"rendered":"Teddy &#8211; The Impeachment Clause"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Teddy Liu - Constitution Project\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/njLS__G1AoU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Written Component<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution is commonly known as the Impeachment Clause. This section states that certain people in the United States government (\u201cthe President, Vice President, and all civil Officers\u201d) can be removed from office if they are found guilty of certain types of misconduct (\u201cTreason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors\u201d). <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The idea of impeachment came from the English system where as a way to check the King\u2019s power, Parliament could impeach ministers and those favored by the King. Contrary to the English practice at the time where any private or public person except for members of the royal family could be impeached, the Framers of the Constitution sought to limit who could be impeached and the offenses eligible for impeachment.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Per Article I, Section 1, only Congress has impeachment powers. The House of Representatives first must vote to impeach, or formally charge, the individual and then must write the articles which detail the charges before submitting them to the Senate. After convening a trial, the Senate votes on whether to convict and remove the official from office. Influenced by Enlightenment philosophes like Montesquieu, the Framers included the Impeachment Clause to allow Congress to check the Executive and Judicial branches as part of the system of checks and balances they created among the three branches of government. In order to discourage Congress from abusing its power, however, the impeachment process requires bipartisan cooperation to achieve the two-thirds vote required for conviction and removal. As a result, Congress has exercised its impeachment power infrequently, reserving it for cases where an individual\u2019s misconduct is considered too dangerous to remain unchecked.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While judicial precedent is often used to interpret Constitutional provisions, the Judicial Branch has no authority over or involvement in the impeachment process; instead, Congress looks to historical precedent as a guide. As \u201ccivil Officers\u201d is not defined in the Constitution, there was once a question as to whether or not members of Congress were included and subject to impeachment, but the common interpretation is that they are not Officers of the United States because Officers are appointed by the President. Instead, other provisions in the Constitution provide ways to remove members of Congress from office.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Treason and Bribery are well defined concepts, there has been much debate around what constitutes a high Crime or Misdemeanor. In an early draft of the clause, \u201cmaladministration\u201d was an impeachable offense, but out of concern that Congress would impeach on any grounds, the Framers replaced the term with \u201chigh Crimes and Misdemeanors.\u201d As with other provisions of the Constitution, the Framers were purposely ambiguous in their wording in order to create a lasting system of government that is flexible enough to address unexpected circumstances and allow the removal of an official whose behavior is harmful to the public. It is commonly understood that this clause exists to allow a process for removing government officials not for incompetence, but for abuses of power.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution is commonly known as the Impeachment Clause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4594,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[390,237,231,392,79,88,381,389,388,384,386,383,223,227,229,385,83,380,382,379,19,387,112,391],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abuse-of-power","tag-bribery","tag-checks-and-balances","tag-civil-officers","tag-clause","tag-congress","tag-edward-liu","tag-enlightenment-thinkers","tag-high-court","tag-high-crimes-or-misdemeanors","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-impeach","tag-impeachment","tag-impeachment-clause","tag-impeachment-trial","tag-parliament","tag-president","tag-teddy","tag-teddy-liu","tag-teddy-the-impeachment-clause","tag-the","tag-the-senate","tag-treason","tag-vice-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}