The argument has been made, most notably by Sen. Lamar Alexander, that while President Trump did the things that the House of Representatives accused him of, he should not be removed from office because the people, not the Senate should be the judges of his conduct, and what the consequences should be.
The fundamental problem with this solution is that elections are not referendums on a single issue. The argument could be tagged as BZL 7 (impeachment or election are either/or alternatives serving the same purpose) and as BZL 8 (oversimplifying the function of an election). Issues like the economy, health care, and national security are more likely to be at the top of voters’ minds. Voters are probably more concerned about the future than the past in an election. In addition, elections are not won on issues alone – a candidate’s power to drive up the negatives of his opponent may be the key to winning, regardless of issues.
So elections do not provide accountability on the specific, but critical, issue of high crimes and misdemeanors. The Constitution and the founding fathers expressly made the Senate responsible for holding the president accountable on those issues. To say otherwise is to say that a President is free to abuse power, so long as he wins the next election. Why would the same rationale not apply to criminal conduct? We might hear: yes, the President committed a crime, but the voters should decide what should be done about it. Those who thinks this sounds ludicrous should remember James Michael Curley successfully campaigning for Mayor of Boston from his jail cell.
On the circumstances here, the argument is absurd. The charge is precisely that Donald Trump abused the power of the Presidency by cheating in the upcoming election. Making the outcome of the election the test for whether the President cheated only encourages more cheating.
A second related argument is also made. That removal would improperly remove Donald Trump from the ballot in 2020. That is simply false. The Senate will take two votes – one on whether the President should be removed from office, and a second vote on whether he should be barred from office in the future. It would be appropriate for those who see that the President has abused his power, but do not want to deprive him, his supporters, or the Republican party of the benefit of him as a candidate, to vote to remove him, but to allow his campaign to continue. That would let him run, but would effectively prevent him from using the power of the presidency from tipping the scales.
A third argument is that removing the president will divide a painfully divided country even further. This argument could be tagged as BZL 4 (appeal to emotion) and BZL 5 (assumes that not removing will heal us). But if members of both parties can agree that it is inappropriate for a President to do what President Trump did, and can agree that a president must be held accountable for inappropriate conduct, that reaffirmation of basic constitutional principles can bring the country together. To the contrary, taking the position that the president cannot be removed after misconduct (or even censured or openly criticized) is to put party above Constitutional principles. That, more than anything else, would contribute to perpetuating and aggravating our divisions.
The key word in all of the above is accountability, and that is why only removal, and not a new election, is the appropriate remedy. The president refuses to acknowledge that the July 25 call was not perfect. More ominously, he may be incapable of acknowledging that anything he does is not perfect. Such a person clearly needs to be watched carefully and held accountable. President Trump seems unwilling to be accountable to anyone but himself, and perhaps his followers. But in any case, he is clearly not willing to be accountable to Congressional oversight. This is the ultimate abuse of power and betrayal of the oath he took as President.
