The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis

This is an analysis of the theory and practice of impeachment since the Watergate era. Litigation in the intervening period over the Senate's removal of three judges has raised doubta about Congress's interest in and capacity for conducting efficient, fair impeachment proceedings, as well as about whether congressional judgements regarding the impeachability of federal judges are shielded from review by other branches. The book argues that impeachment is a far more effective process then commonly supposed and that it constitutes a special non-reviewable power confined solely to Congress for punishing certain executive and judicial misconduct. Without ignoring the implications of such a view for future rulings in separation of powers disputes, the author seeks primarily to establish impeachment's uniqueness by conveying a sense of its consitutional, historical and political dimensions. In particular, he provides in Part I a comprehensive historical analysis of the impeachment process. In Part II he traces the practical problems and most troubling administrative difficulties in actual impeachment proceedings conducted by the House of Representatives and the Senate.Part III resolves the most significant constitutional issues recurring in the federal impeachment process, and Part IV examines proposed constitutional amendments and statutory proposals for reforming the federal impeachment process.

Table of Contents:
IntroductionAcknowledgmentsCh. 1The Impeachment Debates in the Constitutional Convention3Ch. 2The Impeachment Debates in the Ratifying Conventions12Ch. 3Impeachment Proceedings in the House of Representatives25Ch. 4The Senate's Role in the Federal Impeachment Process33Ch. 5Impeachment Issues Involving Congress and the Other Branches47Ch. 6Making Sense of the Federal Impeachment Process64Ch. 7The Scope of Impeachable Officials and Applicable Punishments75Ch. 8Impeachment As the Sole Means of Disciplining and Removing Impeachable Officials82Ch. 9The Scope of Impeachable Offenses103Ch. 10The Proper Procedure for Impeachment Proceedings112Ch. 11Judicial Review of Impeachments118Ch. 12Proposed Procedural Reforms for Judicial Impeachments149Ch. 13Proposed Statutory Changes and Constitutional Amendments to the Impeachment Process159Postscript: The Future of the Impeachment Process173Notes179Bibliography217Index229

About the Author :
Michael J. Gerhardt is Professor of Constitutional Law at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law and Lecturer in Government at The College of William and Mary.

Review :
"Lucid and thoughtfully argued... [This] is a timely and well-researched book that should be of great interest to a broad audience of political scientists, legal scholars, historians and students of the federal judicial process."--The Law and Politics Book Review