Reply #33: here we go again. No, there is no "duty" to impeach

[onenote]

The Consititution doesn't anywhere mandate that the impeachment power be used. It is extraordinarily poor legal analysis and reasoning to suggest otherwise. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction between a grant of authority to act and a mandate to act. Article II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution declares that the President shall have "the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States" but no one would ever suggest that this somehow imposes an obligation on the executive to grant a reprieve or pardon in any particular instance, whether or not "justified" in some sense.

Put another way, the supposed constitutional obligation imposed on the House to impeach is absurd and unenforceable. WOuld you suggest that if the House voted on articles of impeachment that the members who voted against were somehow guilty of a constitutional violation? What if a majority voted against. Would those who supported impeachment be guilty of violating a constitutional duty? It is a nonsensical construction of the plain words of the COnstitution to suggest that it imposes any obligation on the House. What it does it confer authority, which the House can choose to exercise or not exercise as it sees fit.

And as for the oath of office, if it creates anything it creates an obligation to uphold the constitution. It doesn't specify any particular way of doing that.

Finally, if impeachment was required every time a constitutional violation occurred, how come there have been only 17 impeachments in over 200 years, yet any number of legislative and executive acts have been held unconsitutional by the courts. For example, the SCOTUS found that Truman acted unlawfully during the 1952 steel strike. Was Congress immediately obligaged to impeach him? Don't think so and no one else who has ever given it serious thought has ever thought so either.