Political Quotes

“Madam President, tomorrow we will be voting on the two impeachment articles sent over to us by the House of Representatives, a process, as the leader pointed out, that really started from the very day this President took office. I will be voting to acquit the President for several reasons. First and foremost, I do not believe the facts in this case rise to the high bar that the Founders set for removal from office. The Founders imposed a threshold for impeachment of ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors''--in other words, very serious violations of the public trust. The Founders were deliberate in their choice of words. They wanted to be clear that impeachment was a severe remedy to be deployed only for very serious violations. When George Mason proposed adding the term ``maladministration'' to the impeachment clause during the Constitutional Convention, the Framers rejected the proposal because, as Madison pointed out, the term was too vague and would be ``equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.'' The Founders recognized that without safeguards, impeachment could quickly degenerate into a political weapon to be used to turn over elections when one faction or another decided they didn't like the President. That is why the Founders split the impeachment power, giving the House the sole authority to impeach and the Senate the sole authority to try impeachments.…”