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[shadowkat]

How the Impeachment Process Works

About two years ago..a woman from Sweden and I had the following discussion.

Swedish Woman: So, you are stuck with Trump for four years.
Me: No, he may be out before then. We're hardly stuck with him. I'm betting on impeachment.
Swedish Woman: How? You elected him. That would overturn your election and -
Me: No. It won't. We can impeach him.
Swedish Woman: But that's not possible, the people elected him that would be against your democratic process.
Me: well, first of all, no, the people didn't elect him the electoral college did, which isn't the same -- we're a republic not a democracy.
Swedish: Wait, what? You elected him. The majority did. That's how it works.
ME: No. We vote. The number of votes in each state determine how many electoral college votes go to each candidate/party. The number of electoral college votes is determined by the Constitution. Each state has a different number. For example NY may have 10 electoral votes, while Texas may say have 20. But NY has a bigger population, so say 12 million people in NY vote for Clinton, but 8 million in Texas vote for Trump, Trump wins based on those 20 electoral college votes, but Clinton got the majority.
Swedish Woman: So you're stuck with him?
Me: Well, not necessarily -- again there's impeachment. Where the House can decide to investigate and bring evidence against the President, and the trial is held in the Senate ...but you have to have grounds. And we've never had a successful presidential impeachment. It's not easy to do and takes a while.
Swedish Woman: Well, there's no way that can ever happen.
ME: It has happened several times before. It's just ...well involved. And they aren't often convicted, sometimes they resign first.
Swedish woman: When?
Me: Andrew Johnson, and Clinton -- although both got off. (Seriously they tried to impeach Clinton over the whole Monica Lewinsky bit, when there was evidence that the hypocritical assholes were doing the same thing themselves -- it came out later.) Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. Spiro Agnew, the VP was convicted of corruption. As a result of Spiro being convicted first, and a new VP appointed, we had a President who had not been elected in office.
Swedish Woman: Whoa. Has anyone actually been impeached?
Me: A few judges...

US governmental and legal system is complicated. There's a reason people attend three years of law school and have to pass a bar exam by state to practice law in the US. Most US citizens or lay-people don't get how our system works at all. Blame Alexander Hamilton for this nightmare. I watch people online get it wrong all the time. And heck, I know I made a few mistakes in that dialogue above...I didn't fact-check it and it was off the top of my head. The electoral college process alone is head-ache inducing, again, we can blame Hamilton and Monroe for that nightmare.

I barely understand and I was taught this stuff in law school.

Comments

[dlgood]

The odd thing is that the framers did not expect impeachment to wind up happening as rarely as it has. They also did not expect the electors to essentially be rubber-stamp, party functionaries.

[shadowkat]

No, they really didn't. What we forget is they framed it right after fighting a brutal and divisive revolutionary war that not everyone had been in support of and there were huge divisions among them. Although, part of the reason it has happened rarely -- has a lot to do with the lack of information and (I can't remember which number amendment it is) the amendment that prevents anyone from being elected president for more than one eight year term. Once you've served an eight-year term, or two four-year terms, you are cut off. Back then, they didn't have that. And they lucked out because, Washington didn't want to be King and set a high precedent.

I honestly think there are quite a few who should have been impeached and weren't. Andrew Jackson should have been, Regan most definitely, and George W. Bush/Cheney. But they were protected and it was difficult to provide enough proof.

[wpadmirer]

Yep. Our legal system is a bit insane, but it's what we have.

Understanding it is the primary reason I refused to even consider law school, though I was pushed in that direction by friends.

[shadowkat]

Well, law school did have its advantages -- particularly if you like to analyze stuff. And think in patterns. I don't regret law school, even if it was painful at times.

[wpadmirer]

I enjoy that, but not enough to go through with being an attorney. I'd want to do something like being a public defender, and that would be like hitting myself in the head with a hammer. So it's better that I just let that idea go away.

[shadowkat]

Most of us don't become attorneys. I'm a legal professional -- in that I don't actively practice law and negotiate and mediate construction/consulting and environmental contracts for a living.

One of my cubical mates was a prosecutor and a defense attorney for years, then become contract administrator/negotiator like me. You get paid more, it's not as painful, and it's more analysis. He loved it though.

I don't really practice law, I just analyze stuff (financial and otherwise)for a living, do a lot of financial and technical writing, and negotiate with contractors/etc (which is the hard part).

There's an assumption that law school = practicing law. But 85% of people who go to law school never do.

[wpadmirer]

I get that, but I also know me and my over-developed sense of justice. In fact, when I considered it, public defender was my goal.

Libras should never be attorneys. (grin)

[shadowkat]

Eh, I should tell you a bit more of my story?

I went to law school with the ideal of saving the world. Savior complex? You betcha. Before I went? I interned with the Legal Aid Association of Western Missouri -- worked to obtain orders of protection for women with abusive husbands. Also sat in on custody hearings. And, I interned with the Legal Aid Office investigating housing violations.

During the summer -- I interned with the Public Defender's Office, and the Kansas Defender Project (which entailed going into Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and defending various criminals, one for a parole hearing, one for ineffective assistance of council, one for improper sentencing. Also taught a course to the convicts -- we went up for about two nights or so).
And I did Legislative Clinic, where I interned for a Kansas Democratic Senator and did research and cost analysis on The Death Penalty (which I listened to them debate on the Senate Floor), and The Single Payer Health Care Bill -- which I compared and helped him write, and did a paper on why it didn't pass. And the Death Penalty, alas did pass. Although fifteen years later they did away with it -- because it turned out my analysis was correct -- it was so expensive, it bankrupted Kansas.

I realized in law school that I cared too much. I sat through a thunderstorm with a man who had been convicted of bank robbery in a locked down prison for about 8 hours. We got there in the morning, and it took all day to do the parole hearings. We sat with our clients in a dark rotunda. One of those circular hallways, with rooms around it, that they have in government buildings with big domes? The prison was under lock-down due to a knife fight the day before. And there was a wicked thunderstorm roaring outside. It took me an hour and a half to get to the prison from my home in Lawrence, Kansas. There were barely any lights, so it was mostly lit by flashes of lightening. During that period, I had a long discussion with my client, who asked me if I thought he could make it on the outside. He was a kind man, who had been convicted of felony bank robbery, and rehabilitated himself by leading a drug support group and writing pamphlets for kids about drug use. He'd robbed banks to fund his crack cocaine habit. And he had a family in Ohio. He was also 15 years past his parole date. I got him paroled from Federal Prison, since he was long overdue. My supervisor critiqued me for being too emotional, my hands shook. I was too passionate.
But my client defended me and said that my passion was what had helped him.
Unfortunately, Ohio had a detainer. So when he was released from Leavenworth he'd be transferred to the State Prison in Ohio. I tried to help him, but was told by the head of the clinic/project that I could do nothing more for him. I burst into tears.

The other two cases? One was a hit man who worked for a drug cartel, he had heroine lines up and down his arms, and looked like one of the African-Americans in the HBO series the Wire. His eyes were yellow and blood shot.
The best I could do for him was get his transcripts. We sent them to him but he insisted he still didn't get them. The other was a young father, who was put away for fifteen years in the Federal Prison for possession of crack cocaine. The Federal Sentencing Guidlines give 15 years for a gram or less of crack in your possession, and less than five for cocaine. White or rich people get a slap on the wrist.

But that didn't deter me. I tried to find a job. I couldn't. So I gave up finally and moved to NYC. Setting up my own shingle wasn't an option.

So you really don't know...what would have happened. None of us do. I didn't.

[wpadmirer]

That's true. You and I share some of the same traits in terms of our ability to be empathetic.

I feel strongly that had I taken that path, I would have ended up incredibly depressed and unhappy. I think part of my desire to fight for justice had to do with my own situation. I was sexually abused by my father. I went into therapy and my mother wanted me to stop it because "we don't wash our dirty linens in public." She then told my siblings I'd lied about the whole thing and they believed her.

So I was passionate about truth and justice, because I wasn't getting it, and couldn't get it - even within my own family.

I think that going down that path, with the way the justice system isn't fair would have led me to a bad place.

Instead I focused on my writing, and took day jobs that have been an adventure - doing all sorts of things and leading me all kinds of places.

I also freelanced as a writer for ten years and during that time wrote a lot of policy and procedure manuals for businesses. I was good at research, knew HR laws, and had a passion for people being treated right by those they worked for.

I was a licensed private investigator for four years and worked primarily for defense attorneys. In at least two cases, my reports made the difference between going to jail and probation, and both those cases I'm proud of what I did.

I've homeschooled a teenager from seventh grade through GED graduation. I've mentored a young woman whose parents were murdered. I volunteered during the last election, though we lost. But I continue to be involved.

So I'm still "fighting for justice" but not through the legal system. And I think that worked out better for me.

[shadowkat]

Thank you for sharing that with me, sounds incredibly painful.

I don't think everyone is cut out for advocacy. I wasn't. I have a college friend who has made it her life's calling to fight for abused children and women, along with LGBTQA rights. (I don't know her story completely, but know there's pain there motivating her.) And she became a lawyer and advocate.

I couldn't do what she does. (I tried.)

I think we all do what we can. I was told once that everyone's journey is different, and we're all here to learn different things. I like that statement.

[wpadmirer]

It's a great statement. Thanks for sharing it.