The SCOTUS has no authority to “throw out” an impeachment.
>The SCOTUS has no authority to “throw out” an impeachment.
By judicial review they can call any legislative process unconstitutional. If there’s no applicable criminal statue cited in the impeachment articles, then that could clearly violate the dictates that there be “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“The SCOTUS has no authority to “throw out” an impeachment.”
True. The House votes by simple majority whether or not to impeach, and the Senate votes by 2/3 majority whether or not to remove.
However, impeachment of a President inevitably raises disputes between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch regarding the use of Executive privilege, which can only be settled by the third coequal branch, the SCOTUS.
The Legislature has the authority to leave such questions unresolved, and proceed to a vote to impeach or remove without involving the courts, but it is ill-advised, as we have just seen.
House Democrats chose to bypass the courts and proceed to the vote for impeachment based on disputed allegations of “obstruction of congress” and “abuse of power”, both of which disputes could have been resolved by the courts, but were not. The predictable result: a purely partisan vote to impeach.
The House had the RIGHT to proceed to an impeachment vote on disputed charges without obtaining the SCOTUS’ ruling, as does the Senate have the RIGHT to proceed to a removal vote without getting a ruling from the courts.
But without such a ruling, when a dispute between the coequal branches is left unresolved, it is difficult, if not impossible, to garner more than a purely partisan vote - as we have seen in the House, and are likely to see in the Senate.
When no attempt is made to settle inter-branch disputes regarding matters as fundamental as the Constitutionality of Executive Privilege and Separation of Powers, an impeachment is completely devoid of merit, and without merit - all that is left is partisan politics.
If Senate Republicans don’t promptly throw these sham articles out, I don’t know what.