Congress and Bureaucracy II

Questions on the writeup?

For Monday, Davidson ch. 12

Today, no in-person student hour but available for Zoom after 2 pm  and tomorrow between 10 and 3. Please email me first.

For Wed: will post article on censure, reprimand, and other issues surrounding misconduct.

From last time:

Congress "organizes" the executive:

• The "organization" of DHS.
• DNI and the intelligence community

Subpoenas and Contempt of Congress (see Cassidy & RFK above)

• Inherent contempt
• Civil contempt
• Criminal contempt

Impeachment (Davidson, 338)

Article I, Section 3, Clause 7:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist No. 72)

An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to … yield[ing] up the emoluments he enjoyed … might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients.

An ambitious man, too, when … seated on the summit of his country’s honors, … would be … violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard.

The Grounds

• Treason (the sole indictment since 1954)
• Bribery
• High Crimes and Misdemeanors Precedent from England?
• Gerald R. Ford 1970: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

There is no appeal.

Andrew Johnson Impeachment -- see esp. Article Ten

Impeachment v. Bill of Attainder

Persons subject to impeachment

(A separate process for disciplining members of Congress.  More a week from today)

The list

The Process

• The House
• "Due process" does not apply.
• The Fifth Amendment says no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Impeachment merely removes a person from office.
• The Senate
• The rules
• The role of the Chief Justice

The Special Case of the President

The "take care" clause

At Harvard Law Review, Andrew Kent.Ethan J. Leib, and Jed Handelsman Shugerman have an article titled "Faithful Execution and Article II." From the abstract:

Article II of the U.S. Constitution twice imposes a duty of “faithful execution” on the President, who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” and take an oath or affirmation to “faithfully execute the Office of President.

Nixon