Why hasn't congress ever passed a law clarifying "High crimes and misdemeanors"?

[Sheilbh]

But fewer judgement calls than if you haven't already decided that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense.

But it just adds more questions for judgement calls. Did these facts constitute the offence - i.e. did they really "influence, impede or obstruct" or did they do something else? Then there's all the intent questions.

In the last impeachment I remember a fair few Republicans playing exactly this sort of game with lawyerly arguments about Trump's intent. I don't think you should want to build all of those issues into the process.

Similarly there are with Trump I imagine a number of other things he's done that could be impeachable but may well fall outside the scope of this list.

The impeachment process simply doesn't work and yet we need a process to remove a president that will work.  Simply shrugging your shoulders and saying it isn't working because of the current political climate is not particularly helpful.  We need to alter the current system so that it will work in this political climate or replace it with one that will work.

I don't disagree - but this sort of idea is like fixing the plumbing when the house is on fire. I

We are only staving off disaster because some people in government are at least somewhat dedicated to rule of law and the US constitution. 

Right and some don't. And how does adding more laws or making them more specific deal with that - why would they suddenly respect and follow this bit of the rule of law/constitution?

[Razgovory]

Why would codifying an offense cause more questions?   Wouldn't those questions be asked anyway?  If congress has impeached someone for committing "X" and during the debate a majority decide that "X" is in fact impeachable wouldn't they move onto whether or not X actually happened?

"The law says that X is impeachable conduct"

"Did the President do X"?

"That's what we will go over in the trial"

vs

"After a long debate we have come to conclusion that "x" is impeachable conduct."

"Did the President do X?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

[Tonitrus]

As to the thread question...I am not sure a congressional bill that purports to "clarify" a portion of the Constitution would pass constitutional muster.  Though, I suppose if the SC can do it...any one of the three branches can. 

[Razgovory]

I honestly don't understand most of the objections but I will concede that my idea probably won't help things.

[Sheilbh]

Why would codifying an offense cause more questions?   Wouldn't those questions be asked anyway?  If congress has impeached someone for committing "X" and during the debate a majority decide that "X" is in fact impeachable wouldn't they move onto whether or not X actually happened?

Sure - but I suppose the "is this impeachable conduct?" isn't the hurdle that's been the issue. The House has shown itself capable of impeaching Presidents - it's at the trial/jury stage in the Senate that things start to struggle. And from what I understood of your idea wasn't to codify a "crime" of "high crimes and misdemeanours" but to sort of refer to other pre-existing crimes like obstruction of justice.

So I think you'd have the same thing - to take JR's description of obstruction of justice the questions lawyerly Senators would be pushing (to acquit on technicalities) would be:
Did the President influence, obstruct or impeded (or try to) the due administration of justice? Or was it something else? Was it not influence, obstruction, impeding? Or indeed were they not really blocking the "due administration" of justice?
Did the President act corruptly, use threats or force, or any threatening communication or not - was it something else?
Did the President have the intent to obstruct justice? Or was the intent something different?
And - if we're using existing crimes as triggers do we have the same criminal bar - beyond a reasonable doubt?

That's a lot of questions - and that's one crime - you'd have all of those types of elements for every crime you list. If they were smart the President's supporters would be trawling the law libraries for the development of those offences and rulings on what defines and doesn't for each crime to distinguish what the President did from that offence rather than the more substantial, important question of is this conduct so bad as to be impeachable.

[Tonitrus]

I think one potential downside of Trump's impeachment (with the House threshold being a simple majority), is that if the GOP were to win the House in 2022, and Trump followers still dominate, I expect Biden will be summarily impeached...even on the flimsiest of pretexts.  And they won't even bother to think about (or care) whether or not the Senate would act on it.

[The Brain]

I think one potential downside of Trump's impeachment (with the House threshold being a simple majority), is that if the GOP were to win the House in 2022, and Trump followers still dominate, I expect Biden will be summarily impeached...even on the flimsiest of pretexts.  And they won't even bother to think about (or care) whether or not the Senate would act on it.

Better than insurrection, their usual MO.

[Tamas]

Yeah Toni has a point, but it is pointless to try and de-escalate and/or establish some gentlemen's agreement with this fascist nihilist movement the GOP has turned into.

[Oexmelin]

Yes. As long as the Republicans will not agree that the extreme corruption that Trump represents, and his egregious actions were self-evidently impeacheable, there will not be one institution of the Republic they will not debase. That includes Congress.

[Sheilbh]

I think one potential downside of Trump's impeachment (with the House threshold being a simple majority), is that if the GOP were to win the House in 2022, and Trump followers still dominate, I expect Biden will be summarily impeached...even on the flimsiest of pretexts.  And they won't even bother to think about (or care) whether or not the Senate would act on it.

Yeah I think that's inevitable. They were desperate for something to impeach Obama for and the least thing and they'll impeach Biden.

[Barrister]

I think one potential downside of Trump's impeachment (with the House threshold being a simple majority), is that if the GOP were to win the House in 2022, and Trump followers still dominate, I expect Biden will be summarily impeached...even on the flimsiest of pretexts.  And they won't even bother to think about (or care) whether or not the Senate would act on it.

Yeah I think that's inevitable. They were desperate for something to impeach Obama for and the least thing and they'll impeach Biden.

Except they didn't impeach Obama.  They never seriously tried.

And Trump's impeachment kind-of backfired with him getting slightly more popular.  And Clinton's impeachment definitely backfired on the GOP.

[Sheilbh]

Except they didn't impeach Obama.  They never seriously tried.

Yeah. But I wonder about this I think at Obama's stage you still needed a base level of credibility (outside of conservative media) and I can't think of a major scandal under Obama that would really work. Benghazi or the fast and furious came closest but didn't really attach to Obama.

The GOP in the House might change but I think given that most of them voted to overturn election results I think it's plausible they'll jump on the least thing without needing even the base level of credibility. I can certainly see it being an issue of a fight between die hards (Gaetz, Boebert, Cawthorn) v the leadership - if they win.

And Trump's impeachment kind-of backfired with him getting slightly more popular.  And Clinton's impeachment definitely backfired on the GOP.

I think Trump's impeachment didn't really have any impact, but I think it was important because if you can't impeach someone for using foreign policy to try and get or create dirt on a political opponent then it's a redundant, decorative feature of the constitution. It becomes the US equivalent of becoming Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds.

[Valmy]

It becomes the US equivalent of becoming Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds.

Heh. I remember having that explained to me on the History of England Podcast. I suppose it beats just passing a law enabling people to resign from Parliament.