Racism and Bigotry as Grounds for Impeachment
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
New York University Review of Law and Social Change
Journal Abbreviation
N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change
Abstract
Millions of Americans have taken to the streets to protest racism and demand racial justice. At least some of the protest has been directed at a president who was impeached, and whose words and actions have been racially polarizing. Yet issues of racism and bigotry were barely discussed as impeachable offenses.
Were those considering impeachment wrong to dismiss racism as a reason for ending a presidency? Are racism and bigotry grounds for impeachment?
In this article, I answer yes. My analysis addresses impeachment for racism or bigotry as a general matter, concluding with con
sideration of the type of conduct which would warrant impeachment for those reasons.
The article has five parts (following an introduction summarizing the contents and making observations about the politics of impeachment):
1) Study of the text of the Constitution’s impeachment provisions and the Framers’ debate about them, focusing on reasons and grounds for impeachment.
2) Review of the history of impeachment, primarily the presidential impeachment proceedings for Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. I devote considerable detail to Johnson’s impeachment, which was driven by fierce debate over race, civil rights, and Johnson’s racism, as well as to Clinton’s, because the Clinton impeachment articles and arguments greatly emphasized civil rights.
3) Discussion of Constitutional and statutory civil rights law, and other Constitutional provisions, threatened by presidential racism and bigotry. Here I maintain that part of the danger of a racist or bigoted president is how such a president would assault what I call the “Second Constitution”—the post-Civil War equal rights amendments to the Constitution and the battery of laws inspired by the civil rights movement. I describe how these amendments and laws are now fundamental expressions of American national identity as a pluralistic society. I also warn that a racist President could not be safely trusted with the Constitutional obligations to enforce the law or to serve as commander-in-chief.
4) Argument that presidential racism or bigotry, considered generally, is grounds for impeachment. Here I address a series of impeachment factors and considerations taken from the history of impeachment and scholarship on the subject, applying them to conclude that racism and bigotry are impeachable offenses.
5) Examples of impeachable racism or bigotry. Appreciating that the election may render the application of these principles to the Trump presidency illustrative rather than operational, these examples include considerable discussion of the conduct of President Trump, whose racialization of discourse and policy I consider to be historically unique among post-Reconstruction presidents.
First Page
197
Last Page
259
Publication Date
2021
Recommended Citation
Charlie Martel,
Racism and Bigotry as Grounds for Impeachment,
45
N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change
197
(2021).
Available at:
https://lawcommons.lclark.edu/faculty_articles/284