Article by Genevieve Printiss and Sophia Ziemer
Impeachment.
This word has been circling the news quite a lot these past few months. It is a funny word. We all know it is important, and perhaps that it relates to the president, but few of us actually know what it means or how it can affect us.
Would the president be removed or charged with a crime? I often wonder how many students have called for or against Donald Trump’s possible impeachment without truly understanding what would happen either way.
This however, is not a political article. This is not here to tell you which way to lean or which color to wave on election day. No this article is about facts, and just how few of us know them.
According to the Congressional Research Service, this politically charged word refers simply to the filing of criminal charges against a political official.
“Under the Constitution, the penalty for conviction on an impeachable offense is limited to either removal from office, or removal and prohibition against holding any future offices,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
This means that with impeachment, there is no guarantee of removal, only the opening of the possibility for one.
In the history of the United States, only three presidents have been impeached: Andrew Jackson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Out of the three, none have been removed.
Joseph Gorgue is a freshman at TCC. For him, a declaration of impeachment means that the president is failing to fulfill his duties.
“If they were saying they would do this, this, and this, and they’re not following through with what they were saying, or if they do something really terrible,” Gorgue says, “and they just like ruin their reputation.”
For Gorgue, impeachment is more of a descriptive word for a president who will be removed from office. When Gorgue was asked how a president’s removal would affect him personally, he said he wasn’t really sure.
“I’m not really, like I said into politics, so I don’t know what him being in power has to do with my life or anything like that. Because during the day, if he’s a president or not I’m still going through the same things I’m going through.”
This sense of detachment from politics may be a common one in today’s climate. However, it is not shared by TCC sophomore Sonya Livingston.
Livingston lived through the impeachment of Bill Clinton and recalls it as a low point in the political history of the United States.
“It is very difficult to bring a country through impeachment, it puts people at such odds,” says Livingston, “and I think at some sorts it maybe makes us look vulnerable to the outside world, that we can’t manage our own.”
To Livingston, impeachment is the process in which a president is brought to trial and sentenced.
“They (the prosecution) would have to reference what type of law connected to what they did. And I guess it would come to the conclusion after all evidence,” said Livingston.
But who can decide whether the President of the United States is guilty of a crime? Referencing back to the Congressional Research Service, only the House and Senate can make that decision.
According to the article, a simple majority of the House is necessary to approve articles of impeachment. It then takes a two-thirds majority vote by the Senate to convict the President of any article of impeachment.
If the impeachment charges are approved by the Senate, the President will be removed and the Vice President will step in and finish the term.
Could this happen in our generation? We are still unsure.
Currently the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees are investigating the charges brought against President Trump and will vote on whether to bring them before the House. If approved by the House, President Trump will become the fourth President to be impeached.
For more information on this topic, check out the links bellow.
Impeachment: Origins & Development: From the Constitution to the Modern House
USA Today: Pathway of The Impeachment Process: How It Works, Where We Are.
