Monthly Archives: December 2019

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Trial and Error: Pelosi’s Foolish Impeachment Ploy

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The Senate as a Court of Impeachment for the Trial of President Andrew Johnson, illustration in Harper's Weekly, April 11, 1868, by Theodore R. Davis (public domain).
The Senate as a Court of Impeachment for the Trial of President Andrew Johnson, illustration in Harper’s Weekly, April 11, 1868, by Theodore R. Davis (public domain).

To the extent that the third presidential impeachment in US history is a “victory” — the public jury is still out on that question and likely to remain so for some time — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) seems determined to snatch defeat from its jaws.

In a press conference following the House’s vote to pass two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Pelosi floated a plan to delay Trump’s trial in the US Senate by refusing to appoint the House’s “impeachment managers” until she considers the plan for conducting the trial to be “fair.”

CNBC’s Lauren Hirsch describes Pelosi’s ploy as a “game of chicken” with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-KY). Per that metaphor,  Pelosi’s riding a tricycle and McConnell’s driving an 18-wheeler. He has no reason to swerve.

The Constitution assigns sole authority to impeach the president to the House, but sole authority to conduct the trial lies with the Senate.

The Senate does have rules for impeachment, including one that triggers the trial process “[w]hensoever the Senate shall receive notice from the House of Representatives that managers are appointed” to prosecute the case. But those rules can be changed by a simple majority vote, and McConnell’s party enjoys such a majority.

The House has passed the articles. Any further involvement on its part occurs at the pleasure of the Senate. If Pelosi declines to provide managers to prosecute the case, that doesn’t oblige McConnell to sit on his hands until she changes her mind.

Either way McConnell handles the threat, assuming Pelosi follows through on it, the Democrats lose.

If he decides to wait Pelosi out, it’s the Democrats who have formally accused the president of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” requiring his removal from office but who are now delaying that potential removal.

If he decides to have the rules changed, those rules may preclude any House involvement in the trial at all. The new rules may let the Republican Senate majority choose “prosecutors” for the trial. In that case,  Pelosi will have no one to blame but herself.

Republicans have continually bemoaned the whole impeachment process as “partisan” and “politicized.” They’re right — but so far they’ve been at least as  guilty as the Democrats of making it that way, and arguably more so.

If Pelosi can bring herself to stop scheming, appoint the House’s impeachment trial managers (some Democrats propose, and I endorse,  independent congressman Justin Amash of Michigan as the leader of that team ), and let McConnell and Company make themselves look like defenders of presidential corruption, as they surely will,  Democrats just might come out ahead in terms of public opinion.

If not, she should be made honorary chair of Trump’s re-election campaign.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In Praise of Home Delivery Culture

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Amazon Package on Porch

Writing at Reason magazine, Liz Wolfe lauds home delivery culture — the increasing tendency of Americans to Netflix and chill while relying on Amazon Prime, Instacart, Grubhub, and other services to drop the goods we consume off on our front porches.

Wolfe nails some of the individual benefits, and beneficiaries, of this “late-stage capitalism” phenomenon. It allows working people to spend more  of their limited “free” time with their families instead of trudging up and down store aisles. It eases the shopping problems and increases the options of the elderly and disabled.

But Wolfe doesn’t mention a couple of the biggest SOCIAL benefits: Delivery culture is also a huge potential boon for the environment and in terms of reduced infrastructure costs.

Fewer individual shoppers means fewer cars clogging the roads and filling store parking lots (in fact, given Wolfe’s inclusion of ride-sharing services like Uber, it may mean fewer cars, period).

Fewer individual shoppers also means less retail space to heat, cool, and light.

And those two things translate into three other things: Fewer greenhouse emissions, less money spent building and maintaining roads, and more land potentially left as “green space.”

One Amazon or Instacart delivery van bringing groceries to 20 households reduces the number of vehicles out on the road for that purpose, during that time frame, by 95%, and the number of total miles driven for those shopping needs by some smaller factor.

One Uber vehicle transporting ten individuals or parties per day means at least five fewer cars taking up parking spaces for hours at a time at the non-home ends of round trips.

And because those services are operated with an eye toward maximizing profit, the vehicles used are likely to be more fuel-efficient and better maintained than your jalopy, and the drivers are likely to choose the most efficient routes, reducing miles driven, wear and tear on roads, and overall emissions.

Much of the focus on home delivery culture, both positive and negative, is on lots and lots of stuff becoming more and more accessible. That’s true, and relevant, whether you’re a fan of consumer culture or bemoan it.

But home delivery culture also incentivizes businesses to do things that are good for all of us. And it does so through market mechanisms rather than through political haggling.

The iron laws of profit and loss are more reliable motivators of business behavior than public scolding or government regulation.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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A Modest Proposal for Improving Senate Impeachment Trials

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The Senate as a Court of Impeachment for the Trial of President Andrew Johnson, illustration in Harper's Weekly, April 11, 1868, by Theodore R. Davis (public domain).
The Senate as a Court of Impeachment for the Trial of President Andrew Johnson, illustration in Harper’s Weekly, April 11, 1868, by Theodore R. Davis (public domain).

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) makes no bones about his position on the likely upcoming impeachment trial of US president Donald Trump. “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind,” he tells CNN International’s Becky Anderson. “I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”

Well, okay, then. Graham has publicly disqualified himself as, and should be excused from serving as, a juror.

Republican politicians, including Graham, have spilled quite a bit of verbiage whining — ineffectually and incorrectly — about a lack of  “due process” in the House segment of the impeachment drama.

Their errors on those claims are simple: Impeachment isn’t a criminal prosecution, nor is a House impeachment inquiry a trial.

There won’t be any “nature and cause of the accusation” for Trump to be “informed of” until the House passes articles of impeachment.

If impeachment was a criminal matter,  he would be constitutionally entitled “to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence” at trial. And in fact he will be treated as entitled to those things, even in the Senate’s non-criminal equivalent.

But Graham and friends want to talk about due process, so let’s talk about due process.

In addition to those aforementioned items, the Sixth Amendment also mandates “an impartial jury.”

If you’re accused of armed robbery, your brother won’t be allowed to serve on the jury at your trial. Neither will the bank teller who was ordered to stuff money in a sack at gunpoint, or the police officer who arrested you, or anyone else who’s known to likely be prejudiced either way.

Is there any particular reason why the due process requirements Graham hails as paramount wouldn’t mandate a similar standard for impeachment trials in the US Senate? I can’t think of one.

In Senate trials of impeachment cases, the Chief Justice of the United States (in the current controversy, John Roberts) presides as judge.

Once the House passes articles of impeachment, Roberts should order his clerks to drop everything else and get to work examining the public statements of all 100 members of the US Senate. His first order of business at the trial should be to excuse any and all Senators who have publicly announced their prejudices on Trump’s guilt or innocence from “jury duty.”

Yes, Democrats too. That should come as a relief to several Democratic presidential aspirants who would probably rather spend their time on the 2020 campaign trail than as impeachment jurors.

The Constitution only requires the votes of 2/3 of US Senators PRESENT at the trial to convict, so excusing those members who have announced their prejudice and partiality wouldn’t prevent a valid verdict.

Would “impeachment voir dire” render future impeachments more “fair” and less “partisan?” Probably not. But it would at least spare us some theatrics from the likes of Lindsey Graham by making pretrial silence a condition of participation.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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