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Both Team Nixon and Team Trump called their respective inquiries a "witch hunt," a "lynch mob" and a "kangaroo court."
Hill GOP abandons constitutional heritage and Watergate precedents in defense of Trump
Hughes is a research specialist at the University of Virginia.
Once, not so long ago, congressional Republicans were impeachment's constitutional stalwarts.
They stood up for the House's "sole power of impeachment," a power granted in the Constitution, including the right to subpoena witnesses and evidence. Even when the president under investigation was a Republican. Even when the Republican political base threatened to turn against them.
But that was when the president was Richard Nixon, not Donald Trump.
With the Senate trial about to get started, a look back is in order.
Allow us to punish faithless electors, nearly half the states ask Supreme Court
There are now 23 states asking the Supreme Court to answer a basic question about the process of electing the president: Can they bind a member of the Electoral College to vote for the state's popular vote winner?
A group of 22 states on Wednesday asked the court to take up a case involving a so-called faithless elector in Colorado, who was dismissed and replaced in 2016 after refusing to vote for Hilary Clinton even though she won the state's popular vote. The elector challenged his dismissal in a lawsuit, which a lower court allowed to move forward.
The brief from Colorado's allies argues the court should reverse that decision, effectively giving a green light for states to enforce laws that require an elector to cast their votes for the candidate who carries their state. Thirty-two states have such laws.
Symposium on Congressional Capacity and Endless War in Afghanistan & Syria
Organizer: R Street Institute
U.S. military personnel invaded Afghanistan almost two decades ago, and the U.S government began supplying aid to Syrian rebels in 2012. In neither case did Congress use its Article I authority to declare war. In fact, Congress has not declared war since 1942. Instead, presidential administrations have justified their military actions in Afghanistan or Syria. For example, Congress passed an "authorization of the use of military force" (AUMF) in 2001 to permit the Bush administration to use U.S. military resources against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. This sort of presidentially-initiated military intervention is a far cry from what the Founders intended.
Join the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group on November 12 to discuss this constitutionally anomalous situation and congressional capacity over war powers and foreign affairs.
Location: Capitol Visitor Center, CVC 268, Washington, DC
A Democratic proposal would make it significantly more difficult for third parties to get on the ballot in New York.
In the Empire State, Democrats push to perpetuate a two-party empire
Those who say the two-party duopoly is not so great for the republic will not be heartened by developments in New York this week.
Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the Democratic Party in the fourth largest state, is pushing to effectively neutralize almost all of the Empire State's minor political parties. And his proposal seems to have the ear of others on a special commission charged with revising some aspects of election law by the end of the year.
His other ideas for eliminating third parties have not gone far. This one looks like it will.
The new Jacobs plan would increase fivefold, to about 250,000, the number of votes a political party needs to receive in one election in order to get a line on the ballot in the next one. Republicans and Democrats, who routinely draw more than 2 million votes each in statewide contests, are the only parties for which this would be no problem.
