President Clinton has broken precedent and testified in a criminal grand jury proceeding in which he is the target. That decision had more to do with political, than legal, considerations. His admissions to inappropriate behavior, and his subsequent explanation to the public, have left significant dissatisfaction in their wake, especially among his supporters. Not surprisingly, the net result has been political.
Meanwhile, pursuant to the law and his own agenda, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr prepares a report to Congress. Fish swim, birds fly, prosecutors prosecute. We can expect Starr to provide a brief for impeachment.
The impeachment process is clearly prescribed in the Constitution. The House impeaches, the Senate tries the cause, and for a president, the chief justice of the United States presides.
The grounds of impeachment are at once clear and vague. Treason and bribery are cited, along with the English medieval term of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” That phrase emerged in a 1386 English impeachment and amounted to a catalog of political crimes. In any event, the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is determined by the House–the “sole judge” of impeachment, as the Constitution notes. The only restraint is self-restraint.
The Constitution’s framers operated without pretense or guile. Alexander Hamilton frankly noted that impeachment is a political proceeding. He acknowledged the political quality of impeachments–and their potential for abuse–but he and the framers willingly assumed the risk. The offenses for impeachment, Hamilton wrote, “proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”
Impeachment, inevitably, then is political in character. But that is a long distance from partisan. Of our two occasions for presidential impeachment, Andrew Johnson’s in 1868 and Richard Nixon’s in 1974, the political quality of each was profoundly affected by partisan behavior.
The more radical wing of the Republican Party sought Johnson’s impeachment as early as 1866, less than a year after he assumed the presidency. Several attempts failed over the next two years, but finally, in early 1868 divergent Republican factions came together on the issue, thanks largely to Johnson’s own ineptness and foolishness, and voted to impeach him. Most strikingly, all Republicans present voted for it, while all Democrats staunchly opposed it. When the trial moved to the Senate that spring, the president’s lawyers–among the best in the nation, incidentally–pitched their case to the more moderate wing of the GOP. Eventually, they succeeded and Johnson was acquitted by one vote.
Democrats predictably railed against partisan Republican bias. They denounced the participation of Sen. Ben Wade (R-Ohio), president pro tempore of the Senate, and, by law, Johnson’s successor. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, unanimously supported Johnson, including Sen. David Patterson (D-Tenn.), who was the president’s son-in-law. So much for statesmanship.
Whatever the merits of the case against Johnson–and most historians believe they were substantial–the affair’s bitter, partisan quality obscured the issues and tarnished the Republican effort.
Richard Nixon’s impeachment proceeding is instructive for precisely opposite reasons. The usual liberal suspects led the initial assault against President Nixon from January 1973 until the Saturday Night Massacre in October. Southern Democrat Sam Ervin and the maverick Connecticut Republican, Lowell Weicker, were some exceptions and gave the event a bipartisan dimension.
But the firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in October convinced a number of House Republicans that Nixon indeed had something to hide. The impeachment inquiry began shortly afterward, and after months of testimony and discussion, the so-called “Fragile Coalition” emerged. The bloc consisted of four Republicans and three Southern Democrats. They represented varied ideological commitments. Some had zero ratings from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action coupled with high ratings from conservative organizations; others had moderate voting records. All represented districts that overwhelmingly had supported Nixon in 1972. Two of the southerners came from areas that gave George Wallace a plurality of its votes, and a third came from a South Carolina district that delivered Nixon’s largest majority in the country.
The coalition made possible the vote for impeachment charges against Nixon. Other Republicans and southerners eventually joined the effort (with the notable exception of Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott). The bipartisan vote spelled Nixon’s doom and he correctly determined he had lost his political base. The final blow came with an 11th-hour White House visit by the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and other Republican leaders, urging the president to resign.
Now, for Bill Clinton, whither the Democrats? History demonstrates that presidential resignation or impeachment moves along consensual, not partisan, lines. Clinton’s fate lies less with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) chairman of the House Judiciary Committee responsible for investigating Starr’s findings, than it does with minority leaders Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and what they and other Democrats decide to do. Will they determine that Clinton is a burden, even an embarrassment, hobbling both the party and the government? Will they consider it advantageous to establish Vice President Al Gore in the presidency? They owe little to this president. The comparison to Nixon again is striking. His contemptuous neglect and disdain for his party in the 1972 elections eventually returned to haunt him.
We will see how much stomach the Democrats have for a fight, particularly with elections less than three months away. While Democrats weigh their options, President Clinton and Republican leaders must carefully court their support. The congressional Democrats now hold the important cards.
