Our Politics of Impeachment and Consequences for Democracy

The House’s impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is the first time since 1876 that a cabinet secretary has been impeached and only the second time in history. But this is just the latest instance, as data show, in a pattern of increased threat of reprimand by Congress. As historian David Kyvig notes, we are living in an “age of impeachment,” and both parties have engaged in the practice. While the Senate may quickly dispense of the Mayorkas matter, the episode raises larger questions about the state of American politics and the proper recourse for holding political officials—elected or appointed—accountable.

French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville remarked in 1835 that “when the American republics begin to degenerate it will be easy to verify the truth of this observation, by remarking where the number of political impeachments augments.” This sentiment has more recently been echoed by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who argue that a democracy’s decline often results from the excess use of institutional powers no longer restrained by informal or historic norms. That is, the breakdown of democracy can come about through the use of tools that are perfectly within an institutional officer’s authority. It does not require a breaking of process to signal a degrading of institutions.

The Mayorkas impeachment marks the third impeachment passed by the House of Representatives in six years, a noticeable uptick compared to historical trends. Impeachment isn’t the only means by which public officials can be held accountable. There has also been an increase in other accountability mechanisms used for federal-level officials across the board.

The figure above tracks the introduction of accountability mechanisms for federal officials in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Because we are counting introductions rather than passage of resolutions, it should be noted that certain instances of attempted accountability are counted multiple times. For example, four of the five expulsion resolutions in the 118^th Congress are related to the removal of Rep. George Santos (R-NY). Still, as the figure shows, there has been a marked increase in the use of accountability mechanisms in recent years.

It is true that these resolutions have primarily been introduced by just a handful of members of Congress. It is also true that accountability tools have been used for political gain throughout our history. However, the steep increase in use and the increased threats of their introduction indicates a shift in institutional norms around such tools. Members of Congress have signaled that they too believe the situation is beginning to escalate out of control. For example, some have proposed changing the constitutional threshold necessary for impeachment, and there have been numerous attempts to codify what constitutes an impeachable offense to provide more clarity than is given in the Constitution.

Even casual observers of American politics can sense that the rise in intense partisanship has made our politics more aggressive and conflictual. The politicization of these tools runs the risk of enabling actual corruption to be discounted as nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. This isn’t a new claim—President Trump attempted to deflect his own impeachments using such language. Similarly, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has claimed the recent charges against him were the result of nefarious political games. Left unchecked, the dangerous use of this logic has the potential to continue to expand. When looking more broadly at other accountability mechanisms, such as the removal of members from committee assignments or the procedural reprimand of a member for inappropriate statements made on the record, the picture is even more dire.

The political incentives behind the increased use of accountability mechanisms are clear. Members of Congress are electorally rewarded (and often boost their fundraising numbers) when they either behave in a manner that subjects them to accountability mechanisms, or initiate the use of these mechanisms against someone from the opposite party.

Deescalating the situation has no easy solutions. In an attempt to tackle one aspect of this issue, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) created a taskforce to establish a new process for the removal of members from their committee assignments; with McCarthy’s ouster, it is unclear whether the taskforce has continued. One thing is clear though: no solution will work unless Republicans and Democrats both buy into the process and agree that accountability mechanisms should be reserved for real and severe wrongdoing.

Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist 65 that the purpose of impeachment is to induce “a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence, and honors and emoluments of his country.” In other words, impeachment and other tools of accountability are meant to signal that an individual is no longer fit for public life because they have violated the public trust. If accountability measures are primarily employed towards political ends, then we risk creating an environment where accountability when it is truly necessary is no longer possible.

J.D. Rackey, Ph.D. is a Senior Policy Analyst for the Structural Democracy project at the Bipartisan Policy Center and is a former staff member for the U.S. House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

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