By a vote of , the rest of the Senate agreed and refused to seat Glass, leading to a special election in that brought in a new senator. Since then there have been multiple attempts to not seat a senator—most famously Roland Burris in , who was appointed by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich under the cloud of corruption charges though he was ultimately let in. But in reality a refusal to seat a senator is unlikely to succeed. In , the Supreme Court ruled in Powell v.
McCormack that as long as a duly elected representative met the age, citizenship, and residence requirements of the Constitution, they could not be excluded from the House. They could be expelled after taking their seat, but not excluded.
But once that seat is taken, expulsion becomes a possibility. The first time it happened was in the case of William Blount, one of the first two senators from Tennessee. According to the Senate , Blount had worked on a plan to take control of Spanish Florida and Louisiana and transfer them to the British with the help of Native Americans and frontiersmen.
This plot was discovered and Blount was expelled, but not until he was impeached by the House of Representatives the House has the sole power of impeachment , and it falls to the Senate to try the impeachment. When it came to vote, the tally was 19 yeas for expulsion and 10 nays. Since the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority, Smith was saved from expulsion by one vote, although he would resign soon after.
Gralick :. The federal offices at stake "aris[e] from the Constitution itself. Because any state authority to regulate election to those offices could not precede their very creation by the Constitution, such power "had to be delegated to, rather than reserved by, the States.
Members of Congress are clearly federal officials, not state officers, and owe their existence and authority solely to the federal Constitution. As explained by the Supreme Court:. In that National Government, representatives owe primary allegiance not to the people of a State, but to the people of the Nation.
As Justice Story observed, each Member of Congress is 'an officer of the union, deriving his powers and qualifications from the constitution, and neither created by, dependent upon, not controllable by, the states Representatives and Senators are as much officers of the entire union as is the President. As noted in the previous section, even the dissenting Justices in the U. Term Limits case, who would have found under the Tenth Amendment a "reserved" authority in the states with respect to the "qualifications" of Members of Congress, explicitly conceded that no such authority exists in the states to "recall, which the Framers denied to the States when they specified the terms of Members of Congress.
The United States Constitution establishes the exclusive qualifications for congressional office, sets the specific length of terms for Members of the House and for Senators, and expressly delegates to each house of Congress the authority to judge the elections and qualifications of, and to discipline and to remove its own Members. State attorneys general, as well as state judicial bodies, when considering the merits of the issue of a proposed recall of a Member of Congress under state provisions have consistently found that such recall is neither provided for, permitted by, nor is it consistent with the provisions of the U.
The attorney general of Oregon in , for example, ruled that the state's recall provisions could not apply to a Member of Congress who is not actually a state official, but who holds his office pursuant to the U.
Constitution and is a federal constitutional officer. The opinion found that such recall provisions would interfere with the Congress's exclusive constitutional authority over the elections and qualifications of its own Members, noting that the "jurisdiction to determine the right of a representative in Congress to a seat is vested exclusively in the House of Representatives In Nevada, in , an attorney general opinion found that "there is no provision in [the U.
Constitution] for the removal of federal legislative officers prior to the end of their terms other than Article I, Section 5," and "[t]herefore, only the United States Senate or the House of Representatives can remove its own Members prior to the end of the terms for which they were elected, pursuant to Article I, Section 5.
In , the attorney general of Kansas, finding that "Members of congress are neither state officers nor local officers" as defined by Kansas statutes, and finding that the U. Constitution "reserves to the houses of congress" the authority to punish and remove from office their own Members by way of expulsion, provided a formal opinion that U. Representatives and Senators could not be "recalled" under state provisions. Congress, the attorney general found:.
As such power has been delegated to the federal government by the United States constitution, the United States constitution does not provide for any reservation of authority to the states to remove from office congressional officeholders. In a similar manner, the attorney general of Louisiana ruled in that a Member of Congress representing the people of a congressional district in Louisiana could not be recalled under Louisiana law. The attorney general found that the "Constitution does not provide for, nor does it authorize, the recall of United States officials," that the power to remove a Member of Congress before the expiration of the Member's term is expressly delegated in the "United States Constitution to the respective House of Congress The attorney general of North Dakota ruled in , in an opinion upheld by the North Dakota supreme court, that "neither the Constitution nor laws of the State of North Dakota allow for the recall of a congressional officer, specifically a United States Senator.
It may be noted that in one instance in the s an attorney general of a state declined to find that a state administrative agency is barred from accepting a recall petition directed at a Member of Congress.
In interpreting a state recall statute, the attorney general of Wisconsin noted in an opinion on May 3, , that an administrative agency, the state election board, upon presentation of a valid petition to recall a Member of Congress under the Wisconsin constitution, had no authority, in itself, to adjudicate and reject such petition without a ruling from a court.
When such matters have on rare occasions generated a ruling from a court, however, the courts which have decided the issue have thus far found that state recall laws are ineffective to override and substitute for the provisions of the U. Constitution concerning the terms of and removal of federal officials such as Members of Congress.
A federal court in , for example, dismissed a suit which attempted to compel the Idaho secretary of state to accept petitions recalling Senator Frank Church of Idaho. In the unreported judicial ruling, the court found that Senators are not subject to state recall statutes, and that such a state provision is inconsistent with the provisions of the U.
Similarly, in , a state court in Michigan dismissed a petition effort to recall a Member of Congress under that state's recall statute. Although an administrative entity had earlier approved the language of the recall petition, and despite the express language of the state law, the court granted an injunction against the continuation of the recall effort, finding "that pursuant to the text of Article I of the United States Constitution and by operation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, the recall provisions under Michigan law are ineffective to recall a Member of Congress.
In New Jersey, an intermediate appellate state court in refrained from ruling on the constitutionality of that state's recall provision, and refused to enjoin a recall effort against a sitting United States Senator, since the recall effort had not at that time garnered sufficient signatures to invoke an election under state law, and thus the court found that the matter was not yet ripe for adjudication. Senators are unconstitutional From U.
Supreme Court rulings and explanations regarding terms and qualifications of Members of Congress, as well as from several state judicial rulings and attorneys general opinions, it would appear that for a recall provision to be enforceable against a Member of Congress a constitutional amendment authorizing such a recall procedure would need to be adopted by the requisite number of states.
Although there have been some calls for a constitutional amendment authorizing national "referenda" or "initiatives," there has not been significant movement for a national recall provision. Supporters of recall provisions see this mechanism as a device to assure regular and close oversight of elected public officials, and to make elected officials more continuously, rather than periodically, responsible and responsive to the will and desires of the electorate.
Those who oppose recall note that recall petitions generally need only a relatively small minority of the electorate to force a recall election of an official. With the threat of a recall election ever present, it is argued that an official may be deterred from, and penalized for, taking strong and clear political positions that could offend even a small, but vociferous and active political group. It is contended that such small special interest or "single-issue" groups might effectively stymie an official by constantly occupying the official with the potential need to campaign and run in a recall election.
It is also argued that complex governmental programs and policies may often need to function and to be evaluated over time; but with the threat of immediate recall, Members may be deterred in supporting long-term plans and programs for the country which may not bring immediate, short-term benefits to constituents. House of Representatives [Deschler's precedents], Ch. Term Limits, Inc. Thornton, U. Gralike , U. Term Limits, Inc , U. Brown and Johnson, House Practice, th Cong.
Powell v. McCormack , U. Disqualification of a Member on such grounds would still appear to require the specific action of the relevant house of Congress. See case of Senator William Blount Tenn. Bartlett , 68 Mass. In addition to actual expulsions, note House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct's recommendations for expulsion of a Member for bribery in "Abscam" matter H.
It should be noted, however, that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics recommended the expulsion of a Senator in who was not convicted of any crime, but who was found by the Committee to have abused the authority of his office in making unwanted sexual advances to women, enhancing his personal financial position, and for obstructing and impeding the Committee's investigation.
The expulsion order regarding Senator Sebastian was later revoked. Senator William Blount of Tennessee, July 8, Representative-elect John B. Clark of Missouri , Representative John W. Reid of Missouri , and Representative Henry C. Burnett of Kentucky Myers , Cong. Traficant, Jr. In Senate, see , e. In the House, note resignations of two Representatives, one in and one in after Committee recommendations of expulsion in H.
In re Chapman , U. Brewster, U. Note discussion in S. The test is not satisfied by all crimes. With only two named offenses to provide context for the inclusive phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors," the standard remains undefined. The language suggests, however, that criminal action may be required. It is worth noting that the term "misdemeanor" does not correspond to the modern definition of a less serious sub-felony statutory or common law criminal offense.
In the case of Andrew Johnson, the House accused the President, among other things, of speaking disrespectfully of Congress "in a loud voice. The power of impeachment translates into the power to indict. The House, through the Judiciary Committee, conducts investigation and gathers evidence. At the proper time, the House assembles the evidence into individual indictments or charges known as Articles of Impeachment.
Each article requires a majority vote of the House to pass to the Senate. Once impeached, the officer is on trial. Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 --" The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. The trial of the impeached officer is held in the Senate.
In Nixon v. US , regarding the impeachment trial of a Federal judge, the Supreme Court ruled that the application of the phrase phrase "sole power to try all impeachments" to a particular case was not justiciable. In other words it held that the proper application of this constitutional language to a specific impeachment proceeding was not a question for the courts. Therefore, the process and procedure for impeachment lie solely within the purview of the legislature.
The officer subject to an impeachment proceeding has no appeal to a federal court.
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