War Crimes Act of 1996

[Mark Graber]

Might we understand historical practice, dating from the Chase
impeachment, to stand for something like the following.  Governing
officials are not impeachable for acting consistent with beliefs about
the law and the constitution that have reasonable popular support, even
when other governing officials believe such actions might be high crimes
and misdemeanors.  This other governing officials include the Supreme
Court.  Presidents may not be impeached merely when small majorities
conclude they have violated the law, even the criminal law.  For a
governing official to be impeached for acting consistently with
[erroneous] beliefs about the law and constitution, those beliefs must
be clearly repudiated by substantial majorities, so that the official
can be thought of as clearly obstructing a popular will to the contrary.
 Thus, the best case for impeaching Johnson was not simply that the
Tenure of Office Act was constitutional, but that he was on notice that
the general public clearly wished him to be more compliant with
Congress.  Whatever we may say of President Bush, his actions have
neither been decisively repudiated by Congress or the general public. 
Maybe instead of trying to make fools of ourselves in an impeachment,
those of us who think his actions morally and constitutionally repugnant
ought to do more to persuade our fellow citizens of this, see how Bush
responds to a Congress in which the left has a 100 seat majority in the
House of Representatives and a veto proof majority in the Senate, and
then figure out whether impeachment is warranted.

>>> <ricenter at igc.org> 06/29/06 12:09 PM >>>