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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan the Senate Decline to Try an Impeachment Case?
Short answer: probably, especially with McConnell in charge.
Interesting article about Senate rules and how McConnell could circumvent them:
Snip:
"in this time of disregard and erosion of established institutional practices and norms, the current leadership of the Senate could choose to abrogate them once more. The same Mitch McConnell who blocked the Senates exercise of its authority to advise and consent to the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, could attempt to prevent the trial of a House impeachment of Donald Trump. And he would not have to look far to find the constitutional arguments and the flexibility to revise Senate rules and procedures to accomplish this purpose."
The rest....
https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-senate-decline-try-impeachment-case
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)The discussion then turns to whether Dems should pursue it anyway.
Andy823
(11,495 posts)He would block it. He is beholding to trump, Russian money comes to mind, and he would break rules, change the rules, anything to keep trump from going before the Senate and making all the republicans vote on impeachment.
Fred Sandman
(43 posts)UniteFightBack
(8,231 posts)That's what I think.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)They are stacking the courts with right wing judges that will last for decades. McConnel doesnt have to be compromised. He is getting what he wants.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)That doesn't mean he's not compromised, just that I don't think it's required to explain his behavior.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Bills come before the Senate Body as a whole. Mitchy the Bitch holds all the Aces and he knows it.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)The rules for impeachment are detailed and a separate process from other Senate business. But, as the article notes, McConnell would likely try to circumvent those rules in a similar fashion.
anarch
(6,535 posts)and if they tried it, they'd likely make a mockery of the process and refuse to convict. because they are a bunch of traitorous assholes.
I mean, hell...can a senate stonewall the appointment of a supreme court justice for no real reason except they want to hold off until their party is in power? They just make up the rules for themselves as they go along, and nobody does anything about it.
stillcool
(32,626 posts)broken any laws, Congress needs to write some new ones.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)Maxheader
(4,366 posts)During the time of the house impeachment proceedings, let the public
voice its opinion...let's see the senate buck a trend by the voters to demand
the traitor be held up to justice...It needs to be started and concluded
with the senate wingers objections, in a timely manner..before
the 2020 elections...
Karadeniz
(22,279 posts)is presented as a two-part process. The Senate's having the right to decline a vote isn't referred to. I don't think the writers had refusal in mind. It's one process with two steps.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)During an impeachment trial in the Senate, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides, not the majority leader.
The Chief Justice calls the Senate into session for the trial, it doesn't matter what McConnell thinks. And it's 2/3 of the members present to remove. If the Repubbies refuse to show up, so much the better.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)From the article:
"The Senate has options for scuttling the impeachment process beyond a simple refusal to heed the House vote. The Constitution does not specify what constitutes a trial, and in a 1993 case involving a judicial impeachment, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Senates sole power to try means that it is not subject to any limitations on how it could conduct a proceeding. Senate leadership could engineer an early motion to dismiss and effectively moot the current rules call for the president or counsel to appear before the Senate. The rules in place provide at any rate only that the Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses: they do not require that any other than the president be called. Moreover, the Senate could adjourn at any time, terminating the proceedings and declining to take up the House articles. This is what happened in the trial of Andrew Johnson, in which the Senate voted on three articles and then adjourned without holding votes on the remaining eight."
sarabelle
(453 posts)Let the record show that the GOP Senate loved a lying, corrupt, unfit, unpatriotic, functional illiterate more than their own country.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)That would be news to pretty much no one. Everyone knows they won't vote to convict. Everyone knows it's Trump's party now. Everyone knows that they do whatever he wants.
Some people care, some don't, some know and support him anyway. That particular part of it wouldn't change many minds.
Even the media knows that everyone knows, because they don't even bother asking any of the Rs about it. Every media organization is saying the same thing: "What do the Dems do now?" because everyone knows we're the only party that would do anything about it.