NIXON v. UNITED STATES ET AL.
No. 91-740
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued October 14, 1992—Decided January 13, 1993
506 U.S. 224
David Overlock Stewart argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Peter M. Brody, Thomas B. Smith, Boyce Holleman, and Michael B. Holleman.
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Walter L. Nixon, Jr., asks this Court to decide whether Senate Rule XI, which allows a committee of Senators to hear evidence against an individual who has been impeached and to report that evidence to the full Senate, violates the Impeachment Trial Clause,
Nixon, a former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, was convicted by a jury of two counts of making false statements before a federal grand jury and sentenced to prison. See United States v. Nixon, 816 F. 2d 1022 (CA5 1987). The grand jury investigation stemmed from reports that Nixon had accepted a gratuity from a Mississippi businessman in exchange for asking a local district attorney to halt the prosecution of the businessman‘s son. Because Nixon refused to resign from his office as a United States District Judge, he continued to collect his judicial salary while serving out his prison sentence. See H. R. Rep. No. 101-36, p. 13 (1989).
On May 10, 1989, the House of Representatives adopted three articles of impeachment for high crimes and misde-
After the House presented the articles to the Senate, the Senate voted to invoke its own Impeachment Rule XI, under which the presiding officer appoints a committee of Senators to “receive evidence and take testimony.” Senate Impeachment Rule XI, reprinted in Senate Manual, S. Doc. No. 101–1, p. 186 (1989).1 The Senate committee held four days of hearings, during which 10 witnesses, including Nixon, testified. S. Rep. No. 101-164, p. 4 (1989). Pursuant to Rule XI, the committee presented the full Senate with a complete transcript of the proceeding and a Report stating the uncontested facts and summarizing the evidence on the contested facts. See id., at 3-4. Nixon and the House impeachment managers submitted extensive final briefs to the full Senate
Nixon thereafter commenced the present suit, arguing that Senate Rule XI violates the constitutional grant of authority to the Senate to “try” all impeachments because it prohibits the whole Senate from taking part in the evidentiary hearings. See
A controversy is nonjusticiable—i. e., involves a political question—where there is “a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it . . . .” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962). But the courts must, in the first instance, interpret the text in question and determine whether and to what extent the issue is textually committed. See ibid.; Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 519 (1969). As the discussion that follows makes clear, the concept of a textual commitment to a coordinate political department is not completely separate from the concept of a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; the lack of judicially manageable standards may strengthen the con-
In this case, we must examine
“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 language and structure of this Clause are revealing. The first sentence is a grant of authority to the Senate, and the word “sole” indicates that this authority is reposed in the Senate and nowhere else. The next two sentences specify requirements to which the Senate proceedings shall conform: The Senate shall be on oath or affirmation, a two-thirds vote is required to convict, and when the President is tried the Chief Justice shall preside.
Petitioner argues that the word “try” in the first sentence imposes by implication an additional requirement on the Senate in that the proceedings must be in the nature of a judicial trial. From there petitioner goes on to argue that this limitation precludes the Senate from delegating to a select committee the task of hearing the testimony of witnesses, as was done pursuant to Senate Rule XI. “[T]ry’ means more than simply ‘vote on’ or ‘review’ or ‘judge.’ In 1787 and today, trying a case means hearing the evidence, not scanning a cold record.” Brief for Petitioner 25. Petitioner concludes from this that courts may review whether or not the Senate “tried” him before convicting him.
There are several difficulties with this position which lead us ultimately to reject it. The word “try,” both in 1787 and later, has considerably broader meanings than those to which petitioner would limit it. Older dictionaries define try as
The conclusion that the use of the word “try” in the first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause lacks sufficient precision to afford any judicially manageable standard of review of the Senate‘s actions is fortified by the existence of the three very specific requirements that the Constitution does impose on the Senate when trying impeachments: The Members must be under oath, a two-thirds vote is required to convict, and the Chief Justice presides when the President is tried. These limitations are quite precise, and their nature suggests that the Framers did not intend to impose additional limitations on the form of the Senate proceedings by the use of the word “try” in the first sentence.
Petitioner devotes only two pages in his brief to negating the significance of the word “sole” in the first sentence of Clause 6. As noted above, that sentence provides that “[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeaсhments.” We think that the word “sole” is of considerable significance. Indeed, the word “sole” appears only one other time in the Constitution—with respect to the House of Representatives’
Nixon asserts that the word “sole” has no substantive meaning. To support this contention, he argues that the word is nothing more than a mere “cosmetic edit” added by the Committee of Style after the delegates had approved the substance of the Impeachment Trial Clause. There are two difficulties with this argument. First, accepting as we must the proposition that the Committee of Style had no authority from the Convention to alter the meaning of the Clause, see 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 553 (M. Farrand ed. 1966) (hereinafter Farrand), we must presume that the Committee‘s reorganization or rephrasing accurately captured what the Framers meant in their unadorned language. See Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S., at 538-539. That is, we must presume that the Committee did its job. This presumption is buttressed by the fact that the Constitutional Convention voted on, and accepted, the Committee of Style‘s linguistic version. See 2 Farrand 663-667. We agree with the Government that “the word ‘sole’ is entitled to no less weight than any other word of the text, because the Committee revision perfected what ‘had been agreed to.‘” Brief for Respondents 25. Second, carrying Nixon‘s argument to its logical conclusion would constrain us to say that the second to last draft would govern in every instance where the Com-
Petitioner also contends that the word “sole” should not bear on the question of justiciability because
Petitioner finally argues that even if significanсe be attributed to the word “sole” in the first sentence of the Clause, the authority granted is to the Senate, and this means that “the Senate—not the courts, not a lay jury, not a Senate Committee—shall try impeachments.” Brief for Petitioner 42. It would be possible to read the first sentence of the Clause this way, but it is not a natural reading. Petitioner‘s interpretation would bring into judicial purview not merely the sort of claim made by petitioner, but other similar claims based on the conclusion that the word “Senate” has imposed by implication limitations on procedures which the Senate might adopt. Such limitations would be inconsistent with the construction of the Clause as a whole, which, as we
The history and contemporary understanding of the impeachment provisions support our reading of the constitutional language. The parties do not offer evidence of a single word in the history of the Constitutional Convention or in contemporary commentary that even alludes to the possibility of judicial review in the context of the impeachment pоwers. See 290 U. S. App. D. C., at 424, 938 F. 2d, at 243; R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 116 (1973). This silence is quite meaningful in light of the several explicit references to the availability of judicial review as a check on the Legislature‘s power with respect to bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and statutes. See The Federalist No. 78, p. 524 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (“Limitations . . . can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of justice“).
The Framers labored over the question of where the impeachment power should lie. Significantly, in at least two considered scenarios the power was placed with the Federal Judiciary. See 1 Farrand 21-22 (Virginia Plan); id., at 244 (New Jersey Plan). Indeed, James Madison and the Committee of Detail proposed that the Supreme Court should have the power to determine impeachments. See 2 id., at 551 (Madison); id., at 178-179, 186 (Committee of Detail). Despite these proposals, the Convention ultimately decided that the Senate would have “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
There are two additional reasons why the Judiciary, and the Supreme Court in particular, were not chosen to have any role in impeachments. First, the Framers recognized that most likely there would be two sets of proceedings for individuals who commit impeachable offenses—the impeachment trial and a separate criminal trial. In fact, the Constitution explicitly provides for two separate proceedings. See
“Would it be proper that the persons, who had disposed of his fame and his most valuable rights as a citizen in one trial, should in another trial, for the same offence, be also the disposers of his life and his fortune? Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error in the first sentence would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights, which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision?” The Federalist No. 65, p. 442 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
Certainly judicial review of the Senate‘s “trial” would introduce the same risk of bias as would participation in the trial itself.
Second, judicial review would be inconsistent with the Framers’ insistence that our system be one of checks and
“The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be impeached for mal-conduct by the house of representatives, and tried by the senate, and if convicted, may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point, which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own constitution in respect to our own judges.” Id., No. 79, at 532-533 (emphasis added).
Judicial involvement in impeachment proceedings, even if only for purposes of judicial review, is counterintuitive because it would eviscerate the “important constitutional check” placed on the Judiciary by the Framers. See id., No. 81, at 545. Nixon‘s argument would place final reviewing authority with respect to impeachments in the hands of the same body that the impeachment process is meant to regulate.2
Nevertheless, Nixon argues that judicial review is necessary in order to placе a check on the Legislature. Nixon fears that if the Senate is given unreviewable authority to interpret the Impeachment Trial Clause, there is a grave risk that the Senate will usurp judicial power. The Framers anticipated this objection and created two constitutional
In addition to the textual commitment argument, we are persuaded that the lаck of finality and the difficulty of fashioning relief counsel against justiciability. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S., at 210. We agree with the Court of Appeals that opening the door of judicial review to the procedures used by the Senate in trying impeachments would “expose the political life of the country to months, or perhaps years, of chaos.” 290 U. S. App. D. C., at 427, 938 F. 2d, at 246. This lack of finality would manifest itself most dramatically if the President were impeached. The legitimacy of any successor, and hence his effectiveness, would be impaired severely, not merely while the judicial process was running its course, but during any retrial that a differently constituted Senate might conduct if its first judgment of conviction were invalidated. Equally uncertain is the question of what relief a court may give other than simply setting aside the judgment of conviction. Could it order the reinstatement of a convicted federal judge, or order Congress to create an additional judgeship if the seat had been filled in the interim?
Petitioner finally contends that a holding of nonjusticiability cannot be reconciled with our opinion in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969). The relevant issue in Powell was whether courts could review the House of Representa-
Our conclusion in Powell was based on the fixed meaning of “[q]ualifications” set forth in
In the case before us, there is no separate provision of the Constitution that could be defeated by allowing the Senate final authority to determine the meaning of the word “try” in the Impeachment Trial Clause. We agree with Nixon that
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.
For me, the debate about the strength of the inferences to be drawn from the use of the words “sole” and “try” is far less significant than the central fact that the Framers decided to assign the impeachment power to the Legislative Branch. The disposition of the impeachment of Samuel Chase in 1805 demonstrated that the Senate is fully conscious of the profound importance of that assignment, and nothing in the subsequent history of the Senate‘s exercise of this extraordinary power suggests otherwise. See generally 3 A. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall 169-222 (1919); W. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests 275-278 (1992). Respect for a coordinate branch of the Government forecloses any assumption that improbable hypotheticals like those mentioned by JUSTICE WHITE and JUSTICE SOUTER will ever occur. Accordingly, the wise policy of judicial restraint, coupled with the potential anomalies associated with a contrary view, see ante, at 234-236, provide a sufficient justifiсation for my agreement with the views of THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
Petitioner contends that the method by which the Senate convicted him on two articles of impeachment violates
I
It should be said at the outset that, as a practical matter, it will likely make little difference whether the Court‘s or my view controls this case. This is so because the Senate has very wide discretion in specifying impeachment trial procedures and because it is extremely unlikely that the Senate would abuse its discretion and insist on a procedure that could not be deemed a trial by reasonable judges. Even taking a wholly practical approach, I would prefer not to announce an unreviewable discretion in the Senate to ignore completely the constitutional direction to “try” impeachment cases. When asked at oral argument whether that direction would be satisfied if, after a House vote to impeach, the Senate, without any procedure whatsoever, unanimously found the accused guilty of being “a bad guy,” counsel for the United States answered that the Government‘s theory “leads me to answer that question yes.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 51. Especially in light of this advice from the Solicitor General, I would not issue an invitation to the Senate to find an excuse, in the name of other pressing business, to be dismissive of its critical role in the impeachment process.
Practicalities aside, however, since the meaning of a constitutional provision is at issue, my disagreement with the Court should be stated.
The majority states that the question raised in this case meets two of the criteria for political questions set out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 (1962). It concludes first that there is ““a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department.“” It also finds that the question cannot be resolved for ““a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards.“” Ante, at 228.
Of course the issue in the political question doctrine is not whether the constitutional text commits exclusive rеsponsibility for a particular governmental function to one of the political branches. There are numerous instances of this sort of textual commitment, e. g.,
Although Baker directs the Court to search for “a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment” of such responsibility, there are few, if any, explicit and unequivocal instances in the Constitution of this sort of textual commitment. Conferral on Congress of the power to “Judge” qualifications of its Members by
A
The majority finds a clear textual commitment in the Constitution‘s use of the word “sole” in the phrase “[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
In disagreeing with the Court, I note that the Solicitor General stated at oral argument that “[w]e don‘t rest our submission on sole power to try.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 32; see also id., at 51. The Government was well advised in this respеct. The significance of the Constitution‘s use of the term “sole” lies not in the infrequency with which the term appears, but in the fact that it appears exactly twice, in parallel provisions concerning impeachment. That the word “sole” is found only in the House and Senate Impeachment Clauses demonstrates that its purpose is to emphasize the distinct role of each in the impeachment process. As the majority notes, the Framers, following English practice, were very much concerned to separate the prosecutorial from the adjudicative aspects of impeachment. Ante, at 235-236 (citing The Federalist No. 66, p. 446 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)). Giving each House “sole” power with respect to its role in impeachments effected this division of labor. While the majority is thus right to interpret the term “sole” to indicate that the Senate ought to “functio[n] independently
Even if the Impeachment Trial Clause is read without regard to its companion Clause, the Court‘s willingness to abandon its obligation to review the constitutionality of legislative acts merely on the strength of the word “sole” is perplexing. Consider, by comparison, the treatment of
The majority also claims support in the history and early interpretations of the Impeachment Clauses, noting the various argumеnts in support of the current system made at the Constitutional Convention and expressed powerfully by Hamilton in The Federalist Nos. 65 and 66. In light of these materials there can be little doubt that the Framers came to the view at the Convention that the trial of officials’ public misdeeds should be conducted by representatives of the people; that the fledgling Judiciary lacked the wherewithal to adjudicate political intrigues; that the Judiciary ought not to try both impeachments and subsequent criminal cases emanating from them; and that the impeachment power must
The majority‘s review of the historical record thus explains why the power to try impeachments properly resides with the Senate. It does not explain, however, the sweeping statement that the Judiciary was “not chosen to have any role in impeachments.”1 Ante, at 234. Not a single word in the historical materials cited by the majority addresses judicial review of the Impeachment Trial Clause. And a glance at the arguments surrounding the Impeachment Clauses nеgates the majority‘s attempt to infer nonjusticiability from the Framers’ arguments in support of the Senate‘s power to try impeachments.
What the relevant history mainly reveals is deep ambivalence among many of the Framers over the very institution of impeachment, which, by its nature, is not easily reconciled with our system of checks and balances. As they clearly recognized, the branch of the Federal Government which is possessed of the authority to try impeachments, by having final say over the membership of each branch, holds a potentially unanswerable power over the others. In addition, that branch, insofar as it is called upon to try not only members of other branches, but also its own, will have the advantage of being the judge of its own members’ causes.
It is no surprise, then, that the question of impeachment greatly vexed the Framers. The pages of the Convention debates reveal diverse plans for resolving this exceedingly difficult issue. See P. Hoffer & N. Hull, Impeachment in America, 1635-1805, pp. 97-106 (1984) (discussing various proposals). Both before and during the Convention, Madison maintained that the Judiciary ought to try impeachments. Id., аt 74, 98, 100. Shortly thereafter, however, he devised a quite complicated scheme that involved the partici-
The historical evidence reveals above all else that the Framers were deeply concerned about placing in any branch the “awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have.” The Federalist No. 65, p. 441 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). Viewed against this history, the discord between the majority‘s position and the basic principles of checks and balances underlying the Constitution‘s separation of powers is clear. In essence, the majority suggests that the Framers’ conferred upon Congress a potential tool of legislative dominance yet at the same time rendered Congress’ exercise of that power one of the very few areas of legislative authority immune from any judicial review. While the majority rejects petitioner‘s justiciability argument as espousing a view “inconsistent with the Framers’ insistence that our system be one of checks and balances,” ante, at 234, it is the Court‘s finding of nonjusticiability that truly upsets the Framers’ careful design. In a truly balanced system, impeachments tried by the Senate would serve as a means of
B
The majority also contends that the term “try” does not present a judicially manageable standard. It notes that in 1787, as today, the word “try” may refer to an inquiry in the nature of a judicial proceeding, or, more generally, to experimentation or investigation. In light of the term‘s multiple senses, the Court finds itself unable to conclude that the Framers used the word “try” as “an implied limitation on the method by which the Senate might proceed in trying impeachments.” Ante, at 230. Also according to the majority, comparison to the other more specific requirements listed in the Impeachment Trial Clause—that the senators must proceed under oath and vote by two-thirds to convict, and that the Chief Justice must preside over an impeachment trial of the President—indicates that the word “try” was not meant by the Framers to constitute a limitation on the Senate‘s conduct and further reveals the term‘s unmanageability.
It is apparently on this basis that the majority distinguishes Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969). In Powell, the House of Representatives argued that the grant to Congress of the power to “Judge” the qualifications of its members in
This argument comes in two variants. The first, which asserts that one simply cannot ascertain the sense of “try” which the Framers employed and hence cannot undertake judicial review, is clearly untenable. To begin with, one would intuitively expect that, in defining the power of a political body to conduct an inquiry into official wrongdoing, the Framers used “try” in its legal sense. That intuition is borne out by reflection on the alternatives. The third Clause of
The other variant of the majority position focuses not on which sense of “try” is employed in the Impeachment Trial Clause, but on whether the legal sense of that term creates a judicially manageable standard. The majority concludes that the term provides no “identifiable textual limit.” Yet, as the Government itself conceded at oral argument, the term “try” is hardly so elusive as the majority would have it. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51-52. Were the Senate, for example, to adopt the practice of automatically entering a judgment of conviction whenever articles of impeachment were delivered from the House, it is quite clear that the Senate
The majority‘s conclusion that “try” is incapable of meaningful judicial construction is not without irony. One might think that if any class of concepts would fall within the definitional abilities of the Judiciary, it would be that class having to do with procedural justice. Examination of the remaining question—whether proceedings in accordance with Senate Rule XI are compatible with the Impeachment Trial Clause—confirms this intuition.
Petitioner bears the rather substantial burden of demonstrating that, simply by employing thе word “try,” the Constitution prohibits the Senate from relying on a factfinding committee. It is clear that the Framers were familiar with English impeachment practice and with that of the States employing a variant of the English model at the time of the Constitutional Convention. Hence there is little doubt that the term “try” as used in
Petitioner argues, however, that because committees were not used in state impeachment trials prior to the Convention, the word “try” cannot be interpreted to permit their use. It is, however, a substantial leap to infer from the absence of a particular device of parliamentary procedure that its use has been forever barred by the Constitution. And there is textual and historical evidence that undermines the inference sought to be drawn in this case.
The fact that
“[I]t is obvious, that the strictness of the forms of proceeding in cases of offences at common law is ill adapted to impeachments. The very habits growing out of judicial employments; the rigid manner, in which the discretion of judges is limited, and fenced in on all sides, in order to protect persons accused of crimes by rules and precedents; and the adherence to technical principles, which, perhaps, distinguishes this branch of the law, more than any other, are all ill adapted to the trial of political offences, in the broad course of impeachments. And it has been observed with great propriety, that a tribunal of a liberal and comprehensive character, confined, as little as possible, to strict forms, enabled to continue its session as long as the nature of the law may require, qualified to view the charge in all its bearings and dependencies, and to appropriate on sound principles of public policy the defence of the accused, seems indispensable to the value of the trial. The history of impeachments, both in England and America, justifies the remark. There is little technical in the mode of proceeding; the charges are sufficiently clear, and yet in a general form; there are few exceptions, which arise in the application of the evidence, which grow out of mere technical rules and quibbles. And it has repeatedly been seen, that the functions have been better understood, and more liberally and justly expounded by states-
men, then by mere lawyers.” 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 765, p. 532 (3d ed. 1858).
It is also noteworthy that the delegation of factfinding by judicial and quasi-judicial bodies was hardly unknown to the Framers. Jefferson, at least, was aware that the House of Lords sometimes delegated factfinding in impeachment trials to committees and recommended use of the same to the Senate. T. Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States § LIII (2d ed. 1812) (“The practice is to swear the witnesses in open House, and then examine them there: or a committee may be named, who shall examine them in committee . . .“), reprinted in Jefferson‘s Parliamentary Writings, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series 424 (W. Howell ed. 1988). The States also had on occasion employed legislative committees to investigate whether to draw up articles of impeachment. See Hoffer & Hull, Impeachment in America, at 29, 33. More generally, in colonial governments and stаte legislatures, contemnors appeared before committees to answer the charges against them. See Groppi v. Leslie, 404 U. S. 496, 501 (1972). Federal courts likewise had appointed special masters and other factfinders “[f]rom the commencement of our Government.” Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300, 312 (1920). Particularly in light of the Constitution‘s grant to each House of the power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” see
In short, textual and historical evidence reveals that the Impeachment Trial Clause was not meant to bind the hands of the Senate beyond establishing a set of minimal procedures. Without identifying the exact contours of these procedures, it is sufficient to say that the Senate‘s use of a factfinding committee under Rule XI is entirely compatible with
IV
Petitioner has not asked the Court to conduct his impeachment trial; he has asked insteаd that it determine whether his impeachment was tried by the Senate. The majority refuses to reach this determination out of a laudable desire to respect the authority of the Legislature. Regrettably, this concern is manifested in a manner that does needless violence to the Constitution.4 The deference that is owed can
JUSTICE SOUTER, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that this case presents a nonjusticiable political question. Because my analysis differs somewhat from the Court‘s, however, I concur in its judgment by this separate opinion.
As we cautioned in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 210-211 (1962), “the ‘political question’ label” tends “to obscure the need for case-by-case inquiry.” The need for such close examination is nevertheless clear from our precedents, which demonstrate that the functional nature of the political question doctrine requires analysis of “the precise facts and posture of the particular case,” and precludes “resolution by any semantic cataloguing,” id., at 217:
“Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually dеmonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court‘s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.” Ibid.
Whatever considerations feature most prominently in a particular case, the political question doctrine is “essentially a function of the separation of powers,” ibid., existing to restrain courts “from inappropriate interference in the business of the other branches of Government,” United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U. S. 385, 394 (1990), and deriving in large part from prudential concerns about the respect we owe the political departments, see Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U. S. 996, 1000 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch 125-126 (2d ed. 1986); Finkelstein, Judicial Self-Limitation, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 338, 344-345 (1924). Not all interference is inappropriate or disrespectful, however, and application of the doctrine ultimately turns, as Learned Hand put it, on “how importunately the occasion demands an answer.” L. Hand, The Bill of Rights 15 (1958).
This occasion does not demand an answer. The Impeachment Trial Clause commits to the Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments,” subject to three procedural requirements: the Senate shall be on oath or affirmation; the Chief Justice shall preside when the President is tried; and conviction shall be upon the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.
One can, nevertheless, envision different and unusual circumstances that might justify a more searching review of impeachment proceedings. If the Senate were to act in a manner seriously threatening the integrity of its results, convicting, say, upon a coin toss, or upon a summary determination that an officer of the United States was simply “‘a bad
Notes
“[I]n the trial of any impeachment the Presiding Officer of the Senate, if the Senate so orders, shall appoint a committee of Senators to receive evidence and take testimony at such times and places as the committee may determine, and for such purpose the committee so appointed and the chairman thereof, to be elected by the committee, shall (unless otherwise ordered by the Senate) exercise all the powers and functions conferred upon the Senate and the Presiding Officer of the Senate, respectively, under the rules of procedure and practice in the Senate when sitting on impeachment trials.
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Senate, the rules of procedure and practice in the Senate when sitting on impeachment trials shall govern the procedure and practice of the committee so appointed. The committee so appointed shall report to the Senate in writing a certified copy of the transcript of the proceedings and testimony had and given before such committee, and such report shall be received by the Senate and the evidence so received and the testimony so taken shall be considered to all intents and purposes, subject to the right of the Senate to determine competency, relevancy, and materiality, as having been received and taken before the Senate, but nothing herein shall prevent the Senate from sending for any witness and hearing his testimony in open Senate, or by order of the Senate having the entire trial in open Senate.”
This latter contention is belied by the Impeachment Trial Clause itself, which designates the Chief Justice to preside over impeachment trials of the President.