It is clear the mighty constitutional tool to address removing a malevolent actor from office in the US Government is fatally flawed. Impeachment has become a Blue Law reduced to a political gimmick. Impeachment has a definite value to our system, but it must be treated more respectfully. My “Fix” for the process of Impeachment would require a Constitutional Amendment (good luck, right?), but, that said, here is my approach to fixing it.
Serious — and I mean serious — Impeachment is a two-step process requiring both chambers of Congress. The House builds the case, and if the vote for Impeachment is successful. the trial moves to the Senate. What we get currently is a partisan floorshow in the House that dies in the Senate for lack of votes to remove. We need to cut to the chase on this process, so it is more than just a partisan act of performance art. I would end the current nonsense with a preliminary vote in the House on the Intent to Impeach, followed by a preliminary vote in the Senate on the Intent to Remove. Granted we theoretically don’t know if the case in the House will prompt the Senate to remove, but, if we are talking about a wholly partisan action, we can discover at the onset whether Impeachment is a waste of time. Clinton, though impeached, was never going to be removed from office. Trump, though impeached twice, was never going to be removed from office. If we had preliminary votes in the House and Senate, we could tell if the Impeachment was bipartisan or a partisan dead end. My Impeachment Fix is if the preliminary votes in the House and Senate pass, proceed with the process, but if they fail, Impeachment ends there.
Remember, the only reason Nixon resigned was because he was told that the votes to remove him in the Senate existed by Barry Goldwater. The House proceedings alone weren’t going to move him. The preliminary votes I suggest would send the same message to the target of Impeachment. If the votes to remove exist in the Senate, the Impeachment process itself could be avoided with resignation. The primary practical goal of Impeachment is removing the target from the office they hold, as we all know, Mayorkas is not going to be removed from office, so the entire process was a waste of the American people’s time.
Anyway, that’s what I have.