On Impeachment

Why is everyone suddenly talking about impeachment?

The idea of impeaching President Obama is deeply unpopular with the American people. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has dismissed the possibility, calling it “a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”

Indeed Democrats have been mentioning impeachment quite a bit themselves. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has gone into into overdrive with fundraising e-mails raising the specter of impeachment. It is transparently using fear to motivate the party’s base to contribute (*).

If this seems rather shameless, that’s because it is. But in fairness to the DCCC, they don’t have a ton to work with. It’s a midterm in the sixth year of a presidency, a historically bad environment for the incumbent party. The President’s approval ratings are stuck in the low forties. Despite evidence that the law is functioning as intended, the Affordable Care Act remains broadly unpopular and something Democrats can’t really campaign on. The economy is recovering, but very slowly, and most of the gains have gone to people at the top of the income distribution.

Impeachment, however, is an issue in which public opinion is firmly on the Democratic side, with 65% opposed in a recent CNN/ORC poll. In addition to helping raise money, it reminds voters that they think Republicans are extreme and obstructionist. It reminds them that they oppose maximalist tactics like nearly breaching the debt ceiling and shutting down the government that the GOP has employed during the Obama presidency.

And here’s the thing: the prospect of impeachment is not completely contrived.

Multiple Republican congressman have floated the idea of impeaching Obama. Sarah Palin has outright called for it. When asked by constituents why they pursued the tactic, politicians like Ted Cruz and Blake Farenthold cited structural limitations such as lacking the votes in the Senate rather than the idea being without merit. Among Republicans in that same CNN/ORC poll, 57% are in favor.

Perhaps most relevantly, the previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was impeached (though not removed from office) in an effort driven entirely by one party and for ridiculous reasons. Republicans are more than capable. They actually did it relatively recently.

So there’s already a constituency that supports impeachment. Boehner understands this, even if he isn’t saying otherwise publicly. This fact is what is driving the House’s lawsuit against Obama for “executive overreach” for unilaterally delaying the employer mandate in the ACA. It’s not clear Boehner even has the legal standing to pursue a case against the President, and regardless, it won’t amount to anything of substance. It’s designed to be a forum for the Republican base and its representatives in Congress to air their grievances against Obama without taking the politically disastrous step of impeachment.

Only one president since Reconstruction has overcome the aforementioned six-year itch phenomenon and seen his party gain seats in Congress: Clinton in 1998 as the House was preparing to impeach him. That is the recent political history motivating Boehner and others in the Republican establishment to avoid pursuing impeachment.

But another reality of the Republican Party in 2014 points to why Boehner and his cohort may not succeed: the current Speaker has exceptionally weak control of the House GOP caucus.

The most pertinent example is the federal government shutdown last fall. Boehner repeatedly stated in the lead up to the shutdown that he wanted to reach a compromise and keep the government open. Ultimately he was unable to persuade a majority of his conference to support a continuing resolution amenable to both the Senate and the White House (**).

The shutdown is the most high-profile example, but Boehner has repeatedly struggled to control the most conservative members of the Republican conference. Just this week, the House Republican leadership was forced to cancel a vote on legislation providing funds to deal with the child migrant crisis.

The bottom line is that Boehner’s word is far from a guarantee when it comes to predicting how House Republicans will behave.

So will impeachment happen? I’ll hedge my bets here. Whereas avoiding a shutdown or appropriating border supplemental funds required action, avoiding impeachment simply requires inaction. In a system in which inertia is a powerful force, Boehner has an easier road here.

The appetite remains though. It just needs a catalyst. 

As many have noted, Obama has yet to release his executive order on immigration. If it is particularly expansive, is it really difficult to see this sentiment from Steve King catching on on the right? Would Boehner, not exactly a paragon of political courage up to this point, be able to resist conservative pressure to consider impeachment when he is up for re-election as Speaker in a few months?

It’s difficult to predict the future. I don’t know the answers to these questions. Maybe it blows over. But this isn’t just a scam started by Democrats and the White House.

(*) Anyone receiving these e-mails can attest to how irritating it is, but it does seem to be working.

(**) The shutdown didn’t end until Boehner put a bill on the floor that passed with a minority of Republicans and all Democrats voting yea.