A history of partisanship in US presidential impeachments
The Founders were fearful that impeachment would become a partisan endeavor, and they were right to be fearful. It has. That’s why the Founders set the bar so high for a Senate conviction.
If you look back on the history of US presidential impeachments, you will find a great deal of partisanship in the support for impeachment and removal, except for the impeachment that didn’t happen: that of Nixon, whose opposition was so bipartisan that he realized Senate conviction was likely and he stepped down before the impeachment ever occurred.
You will also find that the majority of the bipartisanship and/or crossing of party lines was by Republicans rather than Democrats, and it was Republicans voting against impeachment and/or removal of a Democrat president. This will probably not be a surprise. Democrats tended much more to vote as a bloc for impeachment and/or removal of a Republican president.
Take a look at the vote on the impeachment of Democrat Andrew Johnson. Republicans held an enormous majority in the House, and there were only 4 defections out of 126 GOP House members voting “yea” to impeachment. Of the 47 Democrats, only 2 went against their party to vote “yea” instead of “nay.” So the House vote was highly partisan. However, in the Senate – also very strongly controlled by Republicans (45 to 9) – something quite different happened. Of the total of 45 Republicans, 10 voted for acquittal, which was just enough to acquit Johnson by a single vote.
Nixon I’ve already discussed, but for Clinton we had a House vote that was mixed on the different articles. On the first article (perjury to the grand jury), there were 5 crossovers from each party. On the second (perjury in the Jones case) there were also 5 Democratic crossovers but 28 on the GOP side, and so that measure failed. On the third (obstruction of justice) there were 5 Democratic crossovers and 12 GOP ones; the measure passed. On the fourth (abuse of power), there was 1 Democratic crossover to 81 Republicans who crossed over, and the measure failed.
In Clinton’s Senate trial, every single Democrat voted for acquittal on both counts. Even if every Republican had voted to convict, there would not have been a 2/3 majority to remove Clinton. But 10 Republican senators voted against the first article and 5 voted against the second, a bipartisan vote on the GOP side only. This resulted in the first article not even getting a majority, and the second only getting a tie vote.
Interesting, no?
Which brings us to the recent impeachment of Trump. In the House, no Republican voted for either article, and only 2 Democrats crossed lines on the first article and 3 on the second. Extremely partisan. And I don’t even have to link to the Senate vote, because it’s easy to remember there was only one crossover, Mitt Romney. Almost completely partisan, the most partisan in the history of US impeachment trials.
Which indicates another interesting point: impeachment may happen again and again, since the bar is so low. But as far as conviction goes, if Democrats ever control the Senate by 2/3 and there is a Republican president, he or she may stand a good chance of being removed on a party-line vote. But if the GOP ever gets control of that much of the Senate and there is a Democratic president, removal would be less likely, at least if you look at the historical precedent.
However, at this point things have gotten so polarized that it also could happen. All bets are off.
Fortunately, that sort of imbalance hasn’t occurred in recent decades. During FDR’s tenure the Democrats had huge Senate majorities, but of course FDR was a Democrat as well. The same was true for Lyndon Johnson.
One can only conclude that the Founders knew what they were doing in setting so high a bar. Of course, that doesn’t stop the sort of stunts that the Democrats pulled this time, impeaching because they could do it and because they thought it would help them politically despite the fact that they would not and really could not secure removal.
Well, let’s see what happens if we get Socialist Bernie Sanders elected president. Oh, actually, no, let’s not.
Maybe things have changed on the other side too now:
REP. MATT GAETZ: Tomorrow, Laura, I will be filing charges against Nancy Pelosi in the House Ethics Committee. She disgraced the House of Representatives, she embarrassed our country, and she destroyed official records. The law does not allow the Speaker of the House to destroy the records of the House. The rules of the House do not permit some little temper tantrum because you don’t like what the President of the United States says.
You know what? A lot of Republicans are sick of the double standard here. When Joe Wilson made a comment and excited utterance, oh, the Democrats really brought the heat down on him — when he said that Obama lied about illegals getting healthcare under Obamacare. By the way, Joe Wilson was right. We’ve got to apply the same standards to the Democrats that they want to apply to us, and there will be an ethics investigation into Nancy Pelosi. We will start the ball rolling to have her censured. The first act begins tomorrow when Congressman Zeldin and I will join Kay Granger in a censure resolution, and we will force a vote on that resolution.
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Trump has shown them that the consequences they feared for standing up for things was more a nothing than a something… To be afraid of a maybe is to self censor and self control against an outcome that one only believes will happen, not one that will happen…
this is a thing that has a tendency to grow… that standing up for what helps people gets people on your side, and allows you more ability to do the same, is an emboldening moment of change
the only thing to fear is fear itself…
if people vote for them they will know that they get votes for doing right
not lose them… they achieve freedom of action, not lose it…
its a genie that will be very difficult to put back in the bottle…
at least till incrementalism and time makes it so (again)
“Which brings us to the recent impeachment of Trump. In the House, no Republican voted for either article, and all but 2 Democrats crossed lines on the first article and 3 on the second. ” – Neo
???
“Only 2 Democrats crossed lines” is probably what you meant to type.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2019/12/18/impeachment-vote-n2558216
My prediction: every future president will be impeached, provided the opposing party controls the House.
Artfldgr on February 6, 2020 at 3:55 pm said:
…
Trump has shown them [other Republicans] that the consequences they feared for standing up for things was more a nothing than a something… To be afraid of a maybe is to self censor and self control against an outcome that one only believes will happen, not one that will happen…
this is a thing that has a tendency to grow… that standing up for what helps people gets people on your side, and allows you more ability to do the same, is an emboldening moment of change
the only thing to fear is fear itself…
if people vote for them they will know that they get votes for doing right
not lose them… they achieve freedom of action, not lose it…
its a genie that will be very difficult to put back in the bottle…
* * *
Here’s what President Trump said, and very true it is:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2020/02/06/trump-shreds-muellers-russia-investigation-as-bullsht-in-postacquittal-press-conference-n2560894
Michael Ramirez.
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2020/02/06/171424?hpnl=true
Also in re Artfldgr’s comment:
https://townhall.com/columnists/markdavis/2020/02/06/acquitted-forever-impeachment-diary-final-installment-n2560859
The Democrats, of course, will continue to call a Trump win in 2020 “illegitimate,” but will anyone else continue to listen?
AesopFan:
Good catch. Will fix.
We’re on the same wavelength: https://politicsandprosperity.com/2019/12/14/impeaching-the-president-profiles-in-partisanship/
neo states, “If you look back on the history of US presidential impeachments,” and then states, “the majority of the bipartisanship and/or crossing of party lines was by Republicans rather than Democrats, and it was Republicans voting against impeachment and/or removal of a Democrat president. This will probably not be a surprise. Democrats tended much more to vote as a bloc for impeachment and/or removal of a Republican president.”
I interpret that to indicate that the democrat mind set has never been in favor of bipartisanship but rather committed to winning because the end justifies the means.
National Review is still the home of the Never Trumpers.
Locus of the Republican fainting couch, the pearl-clutchers have a new hero in Mitt Romney — and cite the same lines from “Man for All Seasons” that I did on another thread*, but adoringly agreeing with him rather than simply respecting his right to vote his conscience on principle, as I did.
And then there are the posts that run, more or less: well, yeah, Trump has delivered on a huge conservative wishlist that the GOP touted and failed on for decades, but he’s just so icky.
One particularly even admits that some of our past presidents haven’t been all that great either, but gosh darn The Donald is soooo stupid he just accidentally accomplished all these great things.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/02/24/has-the-presidency-become-impossible/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fourteenth
*BTW, if you look into More’s biography, he did some pretty icky things himself, but that doesn’t invalidate the principles that we all revere from Bolt’s play.
Just pointing out that they cut both ways, and the script (and history) predispose us to see things from More’s point of view.
Every president won’t face impeachment, for three reasons
1) Trump’s approval rating rose during this impeachment. As it will do for every President for which there is not a rock-hard case. It’s not like the Clinton impeachment did the Republicans any favours either, and that was a much better case and actually had a small chance of succeeding.
So unless the opposition party want to lose votes, it ain’t gonna happen.
The current Democrats are deranged, but that can’t last forever. And non-deranged people just don’t do things that they know will rebound on them.
2) The charade of impeachment gets in the way of doing actual business.
The Democrats haven’t been able to do anything positive this term, because they have been resolutely focused on the negative. So come the election later this year, the only thing they will be able to say they have done is fail to impeach.
3) Even if impeachment succeeded, then what? The VP succeeds.
It is a reason why candidates should pick a VP that isn’t a loser. Because that helps prevent the temptation to impeach. If Trump ran Sarah Palin as VP, for example, would the Dems really think they won if the impeachment worked?
Most parties are not deranged enough to spend a lot of time and effort for a win that is a loss.
Some nicely done “ads” for Trump2020 via CTH commenters on this post:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/06/transcript-of-president-trump-remarks-on-impeachment-acquittal/
Outstanding pictures used to create a video depiction of the conclusion of Trump’s SOTU, called “The Best Is Yet to Come” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDrtQlN6CkY&feature=youtu.be
“The State of the Democrats” — a really good “Nance the Ripper” video –
https://twitter.com/KevinJacksonTBS/status/1225253909666492417
The President’s remarks were most entirely call-outs to the people on his team and the Congress members in House & Senate who gave significant help (with a few missing). Very moving in some places, and also funny.
This one is some just plain victory snark.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b83c516386a4178933b7508a7a0090e1b33974c7c48d7784af9549b2d57b5b3.png
The determination of whether this happens again is the fall election. If the Democrats are spanked, losing the House, they will probably cool off. I would not be surprised if they are badly beaten as the Labour Party was in UK. We will see. The Twitter mob is noisy but not that large. Turnout in Iowa was down.
Ackler wrote, “My prediction: every future president will be impeached, provided the opposing party controls the House.”
Make that “future Republican president” and change “opposing” to “Democratic”.
But that’s not much of prediction considering Democrats have introduced articles of impeachment against five of the last six Republican presidents. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-presidents/
Gotta love Snopes’ wriggling – must be because they are all Clintonistas.
“Mostly false” hah.
Depends on what the meaning of “try” is.
Hamilton’s Federalist 65 states it perfectly. It’s been morbidly fascinating to see congressional democrats using it WAY OUT OF CONTEXT to support their lynch mob.