Guest Editorial: Impeachment vs. Harassment

Abstract

In all the current drumbeat of publicity about the president's alleged crimes no commentator or scholar whom I've heard or read in the mass media takes into account the constitutional constraints under which this scandal has evolved. Yet these constraints have far-reaching implications for public administration and for the general welfare of the American people and our democracy. The basic point is easily understood. In all the industrialized democracies where parliamentary government prevails, a legislative majority can oust the chief executive by a vote of no confidence based on any controversial public policy issue. By contrast, in the American constitutional system, presidents are elected for a fixed term and can only be ousted by a legislative majority through the painful and prolonged process of impeachment, a process that is clearly impractical, costly, explosive, and unsuccessful. Is impeachment, therefore, the real goal of the current congressional majority? I think not. Instead, they seek to harass the president so long as he remains in office, thereby hoping to disconcert him enough to cause such serious blunders that his reputation and that of his party will be irreparably damaged. Perhaps the opposition's prospects for electoral victory will thereby be enhanced, but at what cost? No doubt some politicians hate the president so much they just wish to punish him. However, I believe the majority seek electoral success for themselves and their political party but find themselves blocked by the rules of a constitution based on the separation of powers. We need to understand what is going on, therefore, as a political game. Although many of the president's political opponents talk a lot about impeaching him, or compelling him to resign, I believe that this is not their actual intention because, as everyone knows, it could only empower the vice president, someone belonging to the president's own political party. In fact, therefore, actual impeachment would probably hamper the congressional majority-a new and vigorous president would surely become a candidate to defeat. Shrewd members of the congressional majority in a politically divided government might better enhance the prospects for bringing a member of their own party to the presidency if they focused on undermining the vice president. If they could seriously handicap him as a presidential candidate, they might provoke a bitter intraparty primary struggle that could jeopardize his prospects for electoral success even if he were to be nominated. But if he were to serve for a while as interim president, his prospects for becoming the next nominee without an intraparty conflict would be increased. This would not only conserve his energy and resources, but help to unify his party in the next presidential campaign. The current attacks on the vice president, however, appear to be half-heartedperhaps because they generate no popular enthusiasm and could easily become a political boomerang. Actually, impeachment can also boomerang against the opposition majority as demonstrated in the November election which reduced its numbers in the House of Representatives. This caused intraparty questions that led to the decision by Newt Gingrich to abandon the Speakership and even to withdraw from Congress. The reason seems clear enough. Its preoccupation with the impeachment struggle hampered the normal congressional processes of law making to such a degree that urgent policy issues were neglected. This appears to have concerned voters more than the continuing focus on the president's personal wrongdoing. Further evidence of the Congressional impact can be found in a statement by Senator Alan Specter that appeared in the New York Times on November 11. He wrote that it is now difficult to decide how to deal with the pending issue of impeaching the president. Starting with the constitutional interpretation of 'other high crimes and misdemeanors,' respectable arguments can be made on both sides of whether perjury and/or obstruction of justice, if proved, are impeachable offenses. Later that day, on CNN's Burden of Proof program, Specter asserted that the Senate would no doubt be unable to secure the two-thirds majority needed for actual impeachment. This point underlines the constitutional futility of the House proceedings, but it is significant that a key senator should acknowledge this fact because it underlies the point that the preoccupation of the House with impeachment proceedings and its open partisanship were