Issues, Controversies, and Impeachment

Our Issues & Controversies database provides opinions on both sides of the issues and accurate information on current events.  Visit our home page at www.windsorlockslibrary.org and click on the Issues & Controversies icon,  Follow the news with accurate facts and up-to-date knowledge.  Here's an example of what Infobase's Issues and Controversies has to offer:

Encyclopedia: Impeachment,

in the U.S. and Great Britain, proceeding by a legislature for the removal from office of a public official charged with misconduct in office. Impeachment comprises both the act of formulating the accusation and the resulting trial of the charges; it is frequently but erroneously taken to mean only the removal from office of an accused public official. An impeachment trial may result either in an acquittal or in a verdict of guilty. In the latter case the impeached official is removed from office; if the charges warrant such action, the official is also remanded to the proper authorities for trial before a court.

The U.S. Constitution, in Article I, Section 3, provides for the impeachment of federal public officials and gives explicit directions for conducting impeachments. The House of Representatives initiates any impeachment proceedings by resolution and appoints a number of its members to act as managers in prosecuting the impeachment before the Senate, which serves as a court to try the official. The vice-president, who presides over the Senate, also presides at impeachment trials, except in the case of an impeachment of the president, when the chief justice of the U.S. presides. A two-thirds majority vote of the senators present at an impeachment trial is necessary to secure conviction. Impeachment procedures in the states are modeled on those of the federal Constitution and have been infrequently invoked.

Most impeachment proceedings in U.S. history have involved federal judges, and acquittals have been more numerous than convictions. In 1868 President Andrew Johnson was impeached on charges of defying the authority of Congress and of violating a federal law, the recently enacted Tenure of Office Act. Johnson was acquitted. In 1974 three articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon were voted by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. The president was charged with obstructing justice, abusing his constitutional authority, and failing to obey the committee's subpoenas. Nixon resigned, and the House accepted the committee report without taking further action. A report submitted to the House on Sept. 9, 1998, under the independent counsel statute alleged that President Bill Clinton may have committed impeachable offenses in covering up a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1973-    ). The following month the House voted to authorize its Judiciary Committee to begin a formal impeachment inquiry. On December 19 the full House approved two articles of impeachment, accusing Clinton of perjury before a federal grand jury and obstruction of justice. House members defeated two other articles, one accusing Clinton of lying in a deposition in a civil case, the other charging the president with abusing his office by providing false testimony to Congress. On Jan. 7, 1999, the impeachment trial was begun in the Senate.

In England, the House of Lords exercised the exclusive right of impeachment of public officials from the earliest days of Parliament until 1376. In that year the House of Commons began to initiate by resolution impeachment proceedings that were then tried by the House of Lords. Among notable instances of impeachment in English history was that involving the colonial administrator Warren Hastings in 1788. In recent years in England impeachment has rarely been invoked.