Congress is Broken
This impeachment demonstrates how far the legislative branch has gone from its Constitutional role in our system of government.
Not Co-equal
Yes, I typically write one newsletter a week on Fridays but I had to write about the just-held impeachment vote in the Senate. The Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump for incitement of violence on January 6th, 2021 with a 57-43 vote. They failed to reach the necessary 67 votes to convict the former president. This entire impeachment process has served to show how broken Congress is in relation to its proper role put forth in the Constitution.
One of the most common misunderstandings about the Constitution and its framers is that the 3 branches of the federal government are “co-equal.” This is blatantly false. The legislative branch was designed to be more powerful than the other two branches of government. This is why Article I of the Constitution is significantly longer than the other two articles that discuss the other branches. This is also evident in the impeachment power.
For example, if I am your boss I have certain powers that you do not have. One of the main powers that I possess that you don’t is my ability to fire you if you do not do your job. As an employee, you have absolutely no power to fire me, your boss, even if I don’t do my job. You can complain about me, refuse to work for me, quit, or wait until I retire, but you cannot fire me. You don’t have that power. Likewise, Congress can fire the President if he or she does not do their job (or for any reason whatsoever) with a majority vote in the House and 2/3 vote in the Senate. The President has no power at all to get rid of a single member of Congress.
What the Framers got Wrong
When the Framers designed the Constitution, they had an inherent belief that the members of the Legislative Branch, Congress, would have a vested interest in keeping Congress as powerful as they could. It stands to reason that the more power Congress possessed, the more power the individual Congressmen or Congresswomen would possess. Therefore, they would pushback on any attempt by the other branches to encroach on their power.
This was a mistake. The Framers were wrong to think that individual Congressmen or women would be more concerned with their power as an institution than their power as a party. I am not the first to note this nor will I be the last but it’s worth saying. The second impeachment of Donald Trump demonstrated this more than ever.
First, I want to say that I was not in favor of Donald Trump being impeached the first time. I thought his actions were wrong because they involved investigating a political opponent but I did not believe they rose to the level of impeachment. However, there was no doubt in my mind that this time he should have been impeached.
Let me plainly state what happened on January 6th, 2021. The head of the executive branch of government lied for two months by claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. He constantly told his supporters that they must fight if they wanted to keep their country because of the fraud committed. Now, he did not prove any of this in court in the slightest bit. In fact, he never even claimed voter fraud in court but he was willing to say it for millions to hear.
Then, those supporters gathered on January 6th, 2021 like he told them to and proceeded to storm the building in which the legislative branch was performing their constitutional duty of certifying the election results. All the while, the President was not concerned with the legislators’ safety and by many reports was siding with the invaders. This was not merely an encroachment on Congress’s power, it was an attempt to prevent them from exercising their power entirely. The Framers were convinced that the members of the legislative branch would not stand for anything like this and would surely vote to impeach such a person. Yet, that is exactly what the legislative branch failed to do today.
Everyone is to Blame
This failure of the legislative branch to stand up to the executive branch is the fault of both Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats by all appearances purposely wrote a specific and legally difficult to prove impeachment charge essentially handing Republicans a way out of voting to convict. They could have written an impeachment charge citing Trump’s failure to act against the Capitol insurrectionists. They could have written an impeachment charge citing Trump’s constant lies about the 2020 election being stolen. There were many other options that the Democrats could have used if they truly wanted to impeach the President.
Not only that, there were many Republicans (at least 10) who were willing to work with the Democrats to write an appropriate impeachment charge that had a better chance of successfully reaching a conviction in the Senate. The Democrats refused to do this and refused to listen to Republicans that asked to be a part of the process. Finally, the Senate Democrats refused to call witnesses in order to have a proper hearing and trial because they did not want to drag the process out. All because they want Donald Trump to remain a wedge issue for Republicans.
On the other side, some Republicans in the House refused to even consider whether Donald Trump had committed impeachable offenses. Mitch McConnell refused to call an emergency session of the Senate in order to hear the impeachment case and vote while Donald Trump was still in office. Then, the Republicans ultimately failed to vote to convict the former President citing the unconstitutionality of convicting a President after he had left office even though the majority of historians and constitutional scholars refute this claim using the clear, ordinary, original understanding of the Constitution. The legal theory most of these Republicans claim to hold to.
Ultimately
This is a tragic day for anyone who believes in the Constitutional structure of our government. Central to the system is a need for checks and balances between the branches. What this impeachment shows is that most politicians are more loyal to their political party than their branch of government. Our system of government relies on the legislative branch being the most powerful branch. There is much-needed work to be done to make this a reality again. If the head of the executive branch can lie about an election, incite an insurrection, and refuse to act against that insurrection, then the branches are indeed not co-equal. The executive branch is much more powerful.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett