Can a President Run for Re-election if Impeached

It's happening again.

Concluding month, in the terminal week of then-President Donald Trump'south presidency, the Business firm voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for a 2d fourth dimension, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for inflaming a pro-Trump mob that attacked and briefly occupied the U.s. Capitol on Jan 6. Trump's 2d impeachment trial begins Tuesday, even though he is no longer in office.

So why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? Ane answer is that removal is non the only sanction available if Trump is convicted: The Constitution too permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from holding "any office of honor, trust or profit nether the United States."

Speaker of the Business firm Nancy Pelosi has called for the removal of President Trump from office.

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If Trump were to seek the presidency again in four years, he could be the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Party principal. A December Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 percentage approval rating amid Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation equally a whole. Some other December poll by Quinnipiac University constitute that 77 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden considering of widespread voter fraud — a lie that Trump repeated even as his supporters wreaked havoc in the Capitol in January.

Disqualifying Trump from holding office, in other words, wouldn't only eliminate the hazard that America'due south about prominent adversary of democracy would occupy the White House once again. It would also make way for other ambitious Republicans who promise to become president someday.

How disqualification works

Though Congress has the power to remove public officials via impeachment, this power is rarely used. Including Trump, who was impeached in late 2022 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2022 election, only 20 officials (and merely three presidents) accept been impeached by the House in all of American history. And, of these 20 impeached individuals, only 11 were either convicted by the Senate or resigned their office after they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the House'southward conclusion to charge a public official with "high crimes and misdemeanors," the phrase the Constitution uses to draw offenses warranting removal of a high official. The House may impeach such an official by a unproblematic majority vote.

After such a vote, the thing moves to the Senate, which will behave a trial and decide whether to captive the impeached official (if the president is impeached, the Chief Justice of the United States shall preside over this trial). Convicting someone who is impeached requires a two-thirds bulk vote in the Senate.

If the impeached official is bedevilled, the Senate then must decide what sanction to impose upon that official. Nether the Constitution, "judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from function, and disqualification to hold and savor any office of honor, trust or profit nether the United states of america." So the Senate finer must decide whether just removing the official from office is an advisable sanction, or whether permanent disqualification is warranted.

Although the Congress may only remove and disqualify a public official, federal prosecutors may still bring criminal charges against that official in federal courtroom.

In all of American history, only iii individuals — erstwhile federal judges West Humphreys, Robert Archibald, and Thomas Porteous — have been permanently barred from holding future office.

The Constitution is silent on whether, later on an official has already been impeached and removed from office, imposing the additional sanction of disqualification requires a supermajority vote. In the past, withal, the Senate determined that a simple majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Judge Archibald was disqualified by a vote of 39-35 after he was removed from office.

To be articulate, such a elementary majority vote may merely take place after the Senate has already voted to convict an impeached official. Two-thirds of the Senate must first hold to remove someone from function before that official can be disqualified — a simple majority cannot, acting on its own, disqualify an official from property hereafter office.

Even if Trump is convicted by the Senate — an unlikely event given that the Senate is still controlled past Republicans — impeachment could merely cut Trump'due south fourth dimension in office curt by a few days.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

The Supreme Courtroom has non ruled on whether simple majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public office after they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both disqualified in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a case before the Court that could accept immune the justices to rule on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

Nevertheless, at that place is a strong constitutional statement that the Senate should be allowed to disqualify an individual past a uncomplicated majority vote, after that private has already been convicted past a two-thirds majority.

In criminal trials, defendants typically enjoy far fewer procedural protections during the sentencing phase of their trial than they practise in the stage that determines their guilt or innocence. In trials not involving a possible death penalty, a accused must be bedevilled past a jury, simply the sentence tin can exist handed down past a unmarried judge.

A similar logic could be practical to impeachment trials. Earlier a public official is convicted past the Senate, they enjoy heightened procedural protections and must be found guilty past a supermajority vote. Afterwards they are convicted, yet, they are stripped of those protections and their sentence may exist adamant by a elementary majority of the Senate.

In any upshot, overcoming the hurdle of convicting Trump will be difficult. If all l Senate Democrats concord together, they nonetheless need to convince at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump. And the overwhelming majority of Republicans already voted to declare Trump's second impeachment trial unconstitutional — so that's not a nifty sign for anyone hoping that Trump might exist convicted.

The question for Republican senators, however, is whether they want to risk having Trump as their standard-bearer in 2024.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/22220495/impeachment-trump-2024-election-bar-from-office

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