IMPEACHING A PRESIDENT: FOR WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO RECEIVE

Now that the House Judiciary Committee has

approved two impeachment articles against President Trump, and a vote in the full House of Representatives impeaching him appears inevitable,  we ask, “What’s next?” The easy answer –  trial in the  Republican-controlled U.S. Senate –  only partly tells the story.

Impeachment could impact the 2020 election (or not). Americans may long debate this impeachment (or not). This might represent a watershed moment in American politics (or not). We find looking at the possibilities more intriguing than reviewing the tedious judiciary committee debate that brought us to this point.

Impeachment and the Election

Many Democrats who can’t stand Trump resisted impeachment as long as they did because they saw it negatively affecting the party’s 2020 chances. This theory found support in public reaction after Attorney General William Barr

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

exonerated  Trump upon release of the Mueller Report. Barr mischaracterized the Special Counsel’s work, something a lot of people now understand, but he set the narrative for a good while. In the short term, Barr’s bad faith spin doctoring set up Trump for spiking the ball and dancing in the end zone, proclaiming, “No collusion. No obstruction.” It seemed a Senate vote acquitting Trump after impeachment in the House might produce a repeat and give him big advantages next November.

Continuing the football analogy, upon further review, history doesn’t necessarily support that idea. Bill Clinton’s highest approval ratings followed acquittal in his impeachment trial but, arguably, Clinton'simpeachment fueled George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000. At the

very least, it provided Bush a ready-made slogan about “restoring dignity” in the Oval Office, a thinly disguised shot at Clinton for having sexual relations with an intern in that very office.

Oval Office

The impeachment articles against Trump don’t accuse him of sexual misconduct, but the overwhelming evidence of his malfeasance in connection with Ukraine lets the attack ads write themselves. Arguments Republicans make in defending him are as flimsy as crepe paper in a hurricane. Trump should survive the Senate trial because enough GOP senators won’t defect. The American people may well play the role of referee and throw a flag for excessive celebration. In truth, only those long bamboozled by Trump’s act will see acquittal as a reason for voting for him. Impeachment, therefore, may not much affect the election after all.

The Debate

Many words got thrown around in the seemingly endless judiciary committee impeachment debate. We lived through the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. This seemed different and not in a good way. The result, both in the House and Senate appears so baked in, even political junkies might ask, “Why bother?”

House Democrats answer with the irrefutable contention that they couldn’t avoid impeaching Trump and still claim they’re protecting and defending the constitution, as their oaths require. Being lawyers, we get that.  Still, we all know how this movie ends. In the absence of an astounding

development none of us foresee, the House will impeach Trump on a party line vote with defections by four or five Democrats from districts Trump won, the Senate will acquit him with the only mystery being how many Republicans defect. The betting will center on whether a majority of senators vote for conviction, a possibility, given vulnerable GOP incumbents like Maine’s Susan Collins and Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Trump skeptics like Utah’s Mitt Romney who may join Democrats in voting for removal.

 

We fear this impeachment saga will not produce memorable moments. We won’t see brave, principled House Republicans bucking their party and voting for impeachment as seven did against

Nixon in 1974. Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan isn’t around, proclaiming her faith in the  constitution, despite its initial mal-treatment of her racial ancestors. In a few months, post impeachment political discourse probably sounds much like pre-impeachment political discourse.

 

An Impeachment Legacy? What Legacy?

                 

Trump, like Clinton, like Nixon, and like Andrew Johnson will now have impeachment in the first

paragraph of his obituary. But, with a president who has lied as much and committed as many offenses, many of them criminal, how much difference does that make? Is this a watershed moment in American politics or something else?

 

We can offer one unpleasant possibility. The legacy of the Trump impeachment may lie in the fact our hyper partisan politics means the nation can now never remove a president from office, no matter what that president does wrong. Republican support for Trump, in the face of overwhelming evidence of his corrupt conduct, suggests we’re stuck with misbehaving chief executives, no matter their sins. Democrats say they’d behave differently with the shoe on the other foot, but are we sure?

Unless the opposition party holds 60 plus Senate seats, an improbability if not an impossibility, no

president gets removed. It won’t happen unless the country so turns against the president, senators of that president’s party believe they will pay a higher political price for loyalty than turning the other way.

 

This situation, therefore, presents troubling questions for American democracy. Have we reached a point at which only elections can remove renegade presidents? Can a president with a loyal, dedicated base really shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it? Do people so badly want their guy or gal in office that nothing else matters? Perhaps that’s this impeachment’s legacy, a discomforting thought, but maybe where we are.         

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: FAIR? UNFAIR?

 

One consequence of the 2016 Presidential election has been calls for abolishing the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump, but lost the Electoral College, 304-227.  About 107,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan gave Trump his victory.

               

                                 Trump vs Clinton 2016 Presidential Election

Massachusetts Senator and 2020 Democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren now leads the charge for dropping

the Electoral College. She, and others, see it as an undemocratic anachronism that violates the principle of one-person-one vote and unfairly blocks popular will. Conservatives (some support it only because it helped the Republican nominee last time) argue eliminating it will diminish the importance of small states and rural areas while unfairly advantaging big cities.

A Little History

The Electoral College resulted from compromises in drafting the constitution. The framers preferred letting electors choose the President, fearing demagogues would unduly influence uninformed, uneducated voters. They sought a balance between popular will and the risk of a tyranny of the majority. States with large populations might have outsized sway if the popular vote elected the President. The drafters discarded the alternative of letting Congress pick the President in favor of the Electoral College.  

            

The popular vote winner usually has also won the Electoral College. The 2016 result represented only the fifth time a candidate who didn’t win the popular vote captured the White House. It happened, of course, most recently before 2016 in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the Presidency to George W. Bush in the Florida debacle.

 

Bush vs Gore 2000 Presidential Campaign - The fight over Florida

The Debate

Fear of harming small states now stands as the principal argument for keeping the Electoral College. Supporters say candidates would focus nearly all their attention on big cities like New York, Chicago,

Los Angeles, and Houston, not thinly populated rural states in the South and Rocky Mountain West. Wyoming, with a population of 577,000, has become the poster child for keeping the Electoral College. No Presidential candidate would pay it any attention, the story goes, if the country abolishes the Electoral College.

Fear of third parties also now gets raised as a reason

for keeping the Electoral College. Former Reagan administration official Peter Wallison contends America runs the risk of spawning a multitude of minor parties with strong, single issue focus, any one of which could elect a President in a three, four, or five party race in which the winner would only need a plurality of the popular vote. In his nightmare scenario, we’d require a run-off system or we’d face the prospect of coalition governments now seen in parliamentary systems. 

Those advocating change focus on the unfairness of the Electoral College. In a democracy, getting the most votes should translate into winning office. The popular will should prevail and protecting small state or rural state interests, while important, shouldn’t become the tail wagging the dog. In a system predicated on majority rule, this principle carries a great deal of weight.

A better view

Persuasive as the pure democracy rationale is, a better argument for abolishing the Electoral College may lie in the fact it doesn’t do what its supporters say it does. It doesn’t protect small state and rural state interests because candidates ignore those states in Presidential elections anyway. Voters in small states and rural areas might get more attention in a popular vote system than they do now. Presently, having a divided electorate, as measured by partisan affiliation, determines where candidates put their emphasis, not size or rural/urban status.

In 2016, two-thirds of all general election campaign

events occurred in six states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan. The nine smallest states received zero attention as measured by candidate appearances. Big states didn’t fare better. California, New York, and Texas hosted three campaign events between them. Why?  Only the “swing states” mattered. It wasn’t rural/urban status or size that determined where the candidates campaigned. They appeared where people hadn’t made up their minds. Neither Clinton nor Trump needed time in California (a cinch for Clinton) or Idaho (locked up for Trump).

Now, rural voters in New York and California (both states have plenty) get ignored, as do urban voters in Memphis and Atlanta. If every vote mattered, Republicans might see the value of appealing to blacks and browns in Seattle, Chicago, and New York. Democrats might find risky blowing off white farmers and small town dwellers in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Nebraska.

The Electoral College is part of our history.  As one advocate for keeping it wrote, “a deal is a deal.” But, the reasons for changing it now outpace the value in keeping it.

Eliminating the electoral college probably means a constitutional amendment -- a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 states or calling a constitutional convention, which requires 34 states and has never happened. Twelve states, all controlled by Democrats except one swing state, have signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in which they pledge they will vote electors for the national popular vote winner if states controlling 270 or more electoral votes agree they’ll do the same. All routes to constitutional change seem unlikely now, given the political dynamics.  

                 

 

Who currently benefits shouldn’t determine this issue. As journalist Ryan Cooper put it, “if a Democrat ever wins the presidency while losing the popular vote, it’s a safe bet the Electoral College will be gone in about five minutes.” That’s not how a democracy should operate. Principle should dictate this decision. Increasingly, it appears principle dictates ditching the Electoral College.