If you can't beat him, impeach him

67% of Texas Republicans want President Obama impeached and removed from office.

The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling. The Chronicle comments:

Overall, 47 percent of Texans approve of President Obama’s job performance, about 10 percentage points less than the rest of the nation. Public opinion is highly polarized along party lines: 95 percent of Democrats approve of the president’s work, compared to just 10 percent of Republicans. Independents — the only hope for Democrats seeking a Lone Star comeback in 2014 — give the president a 49 percent approval mark.

Republicans don’t just dislike Obama. They want him gone from office.

Two out of three Republicans want Obama impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. Just one in three independents (32 percent) shares that view. And, oddly enough, one in eight Texas Democrats (12 percent) would go along with impeachment.

The state remains very much racially polarized: Just 32 percent of non-Hispanic whites approve of Obama’s performance, compared to 70 percent of Latinos and 84 percent of African Americans. Whites, older Texans and men are the most likely to disapprove of Obama and to favor impeachment.

The obvious question is what drives this attitude, a belief that he's guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor, or opposition to him based on who he is and what policies he pursues. Republicans in the House impeached Clinton, but were unable to remove him from office. It did not work out well for them, so I doubt saner minds in the party will allow this to actually happen, but they'll have to tell that to Steve Stockman.

For background: Wikipedia: Impeachment in the United States.

Fast and Furious for Dummies

Here's a quick look at the program at the heart of this particular conflict between Congress - or at least the House Oversight Committee's chair Darryl Issa - and the Obama Administration - or at least the Attorney General Eric Holder.

Gunrunning programs have been around for a while apparently.

And here's an analysis of the current conflict (the checking and the balancing and the ambition counteracting ambition) in light of past conflicts between Congress and the executive over similar matters. This ain't this first time and it ain't the last. tha author suggests that if the House wants to get at Holder, it should impeach him. That's what its for. A contempt citation is cheap talk.

Are Obama's Actions in Libya Impeachable?

A couple smart guys talk it over.

Are the Airstrikes Impeachable Offenses?

Dennis Kucinich thinks so:

A hard-core group of liberal House Democrats is questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment during a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions” during that call, said two Democratic lawmakers who took part.

Kucinich, who wanted to bring impeachment articles against both former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over Iraq — only to be blocked by his own leadership — asked why the U.S. missile strikes aren’t impeachable offenses.

Kucinich also questioned why Democratic leaders didn’t object when President Barack Obama told them of his plan for American participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone during a White House Situation Room meeting on Friday, sources told POLITICO.

And liberals fumed that Congress hadn’t been formally consulted before the attack and expressed concern that it would lead to a third U.S. war in the Muslim world.

An Impeachment Trial in the Senate

From the NYT:

The proceedings in the Senate on Tuesday were as remarkable as the charges that lawmakers there were asked to weigh. As tax policy debates swirled around the Capitol, the Senate on Tuesday began pondering the fate of Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of Federal District Court in Louisiana, whom the House of Representatives impeached in March on four articles of “high crimes and misdemeanors” stemming from charges that he received cash and favors from those with business in his court.

This is only the 12th impeachment trial of a judge in Senate history.
Update: The Senate voted to convict.

Here's Something To Look Forward To

A prediction that Republicans will impeach Obama if they will control of the House. It backfird when they did it to Clinton, but that might be immaterial.

Investigations to Come?

Politico reports that Republicans plan to launch a variety of investigations of the Obama Administration if they take control of the House and/or Senate after this election. Could an impeachment proceeding be in the works?

My two cents? Don't forget that President Clinton's highest approval ratings were measured the day he was impeached. If the investigations are seem as being entirely partisan by independents, Republicans could easily help Obama regain the popularity he's lost in the past year. The public is very very fickle.

More on the Sestak Controversy

Republicans and conservatives think they have a legitimate controversy on their hands (complete with talk of special prosecutors and impeachment) but there are still questions about whether the job offer was illegal, and how this is clearly stated.

It is argued that three sections of the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, which outlawed the spoils system, are relevant. But since they have (apparently) never been used to prosecute anyone for making a job offer for not running for office. These offers are somewhat common it seems and Democrats are using this argument to claim this is purely a political, not a legal, matter.

Some links:
- Slate.
- Huffington Post.
- Washington Post.

Applying this to class material:

1 - The Progressives are back in the news, at least indirectly. The Pendleton Act was intended to prevent political parties from treating jobs and contracts as goodies they controlled by holding office. Remember that the president not only holds an executive office, but is the unofficial leader of his party. There is almost certainly a great deal of tension in these two roles. In order to successfully be party leader one may well be tempted to do things that inhibit the ability of the executive branch to fully do its job. I wonder if the controversies involving the Mineral Management Service, where appointments were apparently made to political supporters, is similar legally to the Sestak allegations.

2 - Political leaders do all they can, complete with carrots sticks and all number of other things, to influence who runs for office. They do not like it when challengers take on seemingly safe (or safer) incumbents, or the establishment's preferred candidate. Think about this if you ever decide to run for office. Politics is brutal.

3 - And speaking of brutal, has the threat, or reality, of impeachment become just another aspect of the political process? Republicans pushed for the impeachment of Clinton as soon as he was elected. It just took sometime for him to give them ammo. Fringe Democrats were anxious to impeach both Bush and Cheney for war crimes, among other things, while they were in office. The authors of the Constitution were troubled by the idea that impeachments would be used for political purposes, but perhaps it was inevitable that ambitious politicians would do so.

4 - While the conservative media is trumpeting this story, the rest have seemingly determined that this is a non-story and have pushed it behind others. We will see whether they're successful in making independents and others see their way on this issue. Since the press is closely tied into public opinion, we'll be able to track changes accordingly.

Possible Impeachment

The House of Representatives considers impeaching a federal judge.

Kent Impeached

Checks and Balances in action.

Trial to follow in the Senate.

Kent Impeachment Recommended

From the CQ:

A special House Judiciary panel Tuesday voted 10-0 to recommend impeachment of a Texas federal judge convicted of obstruction of justice earlier this year for lying about unwanted sexual contact with two of his female employees.

U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, who has served in the Southern District of Texas since 1990, pleaded guilty in February to one count of obstruction of justice after admitting that he gave false testimony to federal investigators looking into the sexual misconduct complaints. He was sentenced to 33 months in prison in May and is set to begin his sentence on June 15.

He would join a very small list of judges.

It Could Have Been Worse ...

... ask Caesar.

The Illinois Senate votes to remove the governor from his office.

More on Cheney

Andrew Sullivan argues for impeachment.

"Most Americans are not yet fully aware that this vice-president believes that the executive branch is not subject to domestic or international law, has inherent powers to arrest, detain indefinitely without charges and torture anyone on earth if it so wishes, and can wire-tap Americans without any court oversight for good measure. These are not emergency powers in wartime, but permanent new powers since we are in permanent new state of war. Alongside our constitution, Cheney has constructed a rival governing force, a protectorate, answerable to no one and no law, dedicated to our security. We do get to select that protector every four years (our "accountability moment"), but that's the extent of our ultimate constitutional and legal protection. This is not self-government; it's delegation of power to a single leader-guardian-decider. The president is not really the president in this constitutional model. Presidents preside over a constitutional order. Protectors act as constant and energetic guardians of the security of others. They are outside the law, because they believe the law impedes the necessity for risk-free security."

He quotes one of his readers who suggests that impeachments were intended to be more frequent, the proof being it's "asymmetrical" structure. A simple majority for impeachment and a 2/3rds majority for removal from office. I don't know if I buy the argument, but its worth chewing over.

According to a recent poll, 54% of respondents support impeachment (76% of Democrats, 51% of Independents, and 17% of Republicans)

Here's the rub though. Do Democrats really want him out of office? He may be a great foil for them to run against. Notice that no one seems to care about Donald Rumsfeld anymore. It might be best to keep him in the limelight--maybe Republicans should want to kick him put. Plus if Democrats impeach him it opens the door to retaliation when a Republican Congress has the chance--not that they would actually do anything like that.

H Res 333

On April 24 Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney and recent events have led a small number of additional members of Congress to sign on.

That makes seven, which ain't much, but who knows if additional revelations might lead others to join up? It's worth monitoring.

Seriously?

Slate makes a case for Cheney's impeachment.

Checks and Balances

Impeach Gonzales?

The I - word

Foreign Policy, a noted journal, has included an article outlining the case for the impeachment of George Bush.

It was written by a former member of Congress, Elizabeth Holtzman, who served during Watergate. She's sung this tune before, so perhaps she's simply on a crusade, but the argument deserves a listen.

Ultimately, she points out, an impeachment is a political decision, but he claims that the President has refuse to assent to the laws of Congress enough times to warrant removal from office.

Is she off base?