Graham Proposed Senate Resolution relating to House Persecution Process

Lindsey Graham ^ | October 24, 2019 | Lindsey Graham

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

CJ presiding still has almost no control, except for dealing with intemperate outbursts by Senators. The trial rules are set by the Senate, not by the CJ.

It's more than that. When impeachment is on the floor, the Chief Justice presides over the chamber in the same way as the Vice President or the President Pro Tem. Here's a good description of the process and the politics, from a former Solicitor General:

When an article of impeachment is voted on, the House appoints House managers who present the articles of impeachment to the Senate and who would notify the chief justice. The House managers would propose a briefing schedule and debating schedule. The president’s attorneys would have their own counter briefing schedule, and the chief justice, I think, would confer with, certainly, the majority and minority leaders in the Senate about when it would be convenient. But it’s not clear to me that it’s Mitch McConnell rather than John Roberts, chief justice, who decides to commence the proceedings. Now, political friends tell me that Majority Leader McConnell would wish to avoid a roll-call vote. He’s got too many members who might be exposed that time either to say, “What is clearly established to have happened didn’t happen,” or to acknowledge that it happened, but say, “It’s OK for a president to do things like those that are detailed in articles of impeachment.” I don’t think the majority leader can make motions. It has to be that the president’s lawyers could move to dismiss without any further proceedings and avoid the Senate trial.

So, on that motion to just simply dismiss all the charges—which I believe they could make—if it were carried by a majority vote, I believe that’s the end of the matter in the Senate, as a matter of the Senate’s sheer power to try impeachments. But I think that the chief justice would call the question and listen to the ays and nays, and almost certainly they would be close-enough ays and nays that the chief justice would say, “The voice vote being inconclusive, the clerk shall call the roll.” Senators would have to vote without hearing any evidence, or testimony, or briefing, or presentation, and I think that would be a tough vote, particularly since the chief justice would have the vote to decide whether to proceed or not. The framers didn’t contemplate that there would be a political party that had one member that could control how every member of that party voted—that is the present system where McConnell controls his caucus. But with the chief justice in the chair, I am not at all confident that the majority leader of the Senate can successfully make this go away without having at least an initial vote.

[Cboldt]

Just read the Clinton proceeding. They are in the Congressional record. I did that this week. It's informative of how the process works, and which entity has which control.

For example, McConnell would take the articles in the first place, then send for the CJ. And a MTD was made at the conclusion of presentation of evidence, by Senator Byrd.