WI Maladminstration a ground for impeachment

I have heard it stated that this was suggested when Impeachment was considered in the 1787 convention.

Would there have been more impeachments and some convictions if that were there?
 
I have heard it stated that this was suggested when Impeachment was considered in the 1787 convention.

Would there have been more impeachments and some convictions if that were there?

You'd have practically needed a revolving door on the White House. Madison was quick to point out the objection. See http://famous-trials.com/johnson/487-constitution

The Framers' Debates on the Impeachment Provisions (from the notes of James Madison, taken at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, 1787):
It was moved & 2ded. to postpone the question of impeachments which was negatived. Mas. & S. Carolina only being ay.

On ye. Question, Shall the Executive be removeable on impeachments &c.?
Mas. no. Ct. ay. N. J. ay. Pa. ay. Del ay. Md. ay. Va. ay. N. C. ay. S. C. no. Geo. ay.

Saturday, September 8

The clause referring to the Senate, the trial of impeachments agst. the President, for Treason & bribery, was taken up.

Col. Mason. Why is the provision restrained to Treason & bribery only? Treason as defined in the Constitution will not reach many great and dangerous offences. Hastings is not guilty of Treason. Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be Treason as above defined. As bills of attainder which have saved the British Constitution are forbidden, it is the more necessary to extend: the power of impeachments. He movd. to add after "bribery" "or maladministration." Mr. Gerry seconded him.

Mr. Madison So vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.

Mr. Govr. Morris, it will not be put in force & can do no harm. An election of very four years will prevent maladministration.

Col. Mason withdrew "maladministration" & substitutes "other high crimes & misdemeanors agst. the State"

On the question thus altered
N. H. ay. Mas. ay. Ct. ay. N. J. no. Pa. no. Del. no. Md. ay. Va. ay. N. C. ay. S. C. ay. Geo. ay.
 
Then certainly more President's would be impeached, and retaining control of both Houses of Congress would be even more of a priority.
 
Like a vote of no confidence? It sounds good, especially if whoever is in charge isn't to your liking, but I don't think that works very well in a presidential system that prevents the existence of more than two effective political parties.
 
Like a vote of no confidence? It sounds good, especially if whoever is in charge isn't to your liking, but I don't think that works very well in a presidential system that prevents the existence of more than two effective political parties.

I could see Congress trying to impeach Carter for maladministration in 1979. Congress would certainly have grounds to do so against Dubya in 2007, but the Democratic leadership was consistently opposed to impeachment in OTL and I don't see that changing provided that the same officials are in charge of Congress.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
I agree with the above, it wouldn't be compatible with the Presidential system outlined in the rest of the Constitution because it would break down the separation (really independence) of the branches of government. One man's maladministration would be another's good public policy so as party politics evolve it would quickly become a kind of vote of no confidence. At that point the President is essentially serving at the pleasure of Congress since they can dismiss him at will through impeachment for maladministration. But since the President can't dissolve Congress and call for snap elections the relationship is unequal and Congress would dominate the executive which would become a subordinate branch to the legislature. Presidential veto, for example, one of the fundamental checks and balances, becomes meaningless when you can just replace the President. At that point it would also lead to a crisis of Congressional nullification when Congress can simply impeach a democratically elected President they don't like, overriding the will of the voters (technically the Electoral College but by implication, the people).

You'd have to seriously constrain the definition of maladministration and up the requirements maybe to a 3/4 majority vote and even then I think it's still open to abuse. Morris had it right, election every four years is the check against maladministration.
 
The list would start early and would be a long one. These aren't certainties, of course, but I could rationalize these among others:
  1. Thomas Jefferson for the failed Embargo Act of 1807
  2. James Madison for the erratic conduct of the War of 1812
  3. John Tyler...well, threatened with impeachment IOTL, so I could see how lowering the bar would have made it happen
  4. Franklin Pierce for the upheaval around Bloody Kansas
  5. Ulysses Grant for allowing the various scandals (chief among them Crédit Mobilier) to happen on his watch
  6. Grover Cleveland for the clumsy handling of the Venezuelan border crisis
  7. Woodrow Wilson for either failing to go to war over the Lusitania or his intransigence over the Versailles Treaty (take your pick)
  8. Warren Harding for Teapot Dome
  9. Herbert Hoover for not doing enough to mitigate the after-effects of the 1929 crash
  10. Franklin Roosevelt for trying to pack the Supreme Court
  11. Harry Truman for all the various items that led to his record-low approval rating
  12. Lyndon Johnson for the upheavals in cities in 1967 and 1968, coupled with the unpopularity of the war in Viet Nam
  13. Richard Nixon obviously for Watergate and the cover-up
  14. Jimmy Carter for the bungling of the Iranian hostage crisis
  15. Ronald Reagan for Iran-Contra
  16. Bill Clinton for the same things that got him impeached IOTL--except this time he might be convicted and thrown out
  17. George W. Bush for getting bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan
  18. Barrack Obama for any number of things, real or imagined
  19. Donald Trump for...well, just look at today's headlines
That's more than 40% of the presidents who served IOTL--and I wouldn't be surprised if there are other instances that I overlooked, etc. Essentially, with this maladministration provision, the president answers to Congress. There goes a major set of checks and balances.
 
Essentially, with this maladministration provision, the president answers to Congress. There goes a major set of checks

To play Devil's Advocate, some would argue that this would actually be a good thing due to the imperial nature of a President who can easily get away with breaking the law by secretly working around Congress then feign plausible deniability. The example of Reagan pretty quickly comes to mind.

However, I agree that if the Founders included "maladministration" then it would easily be abused by a President's political opponents. The GOP certainly would certainly have impeached Obama for this once they had both Congressional Houses in 2015, for no reason other than to destroy his administration for personal gain.
 
As others have noted there’s no meaningful way to distinguish “maladministration” from “policy or President I don’t like”. The OTL set up at least maintains the idea that impeachment should be based on some illegal act. Including maladministration would let Congress remove the President at any time and for anything they wanted. That’s not a recipe for a good political situation.
 
Congress can effectively already impeach for whatever reason they want to. I don't see it changing history much. The political will for impeachment will still be rare.
 
If impeachment trials still require 2/3 in the Senate to convict, there might be more impeachments attempted, but I doubt there would be many removals. The only candidates I can think of for a successful removal on "maladministration" grounds would be John Tyler and Andrew Johnson.

Tyler was so out-of-step with Congressional Whigs that he had no real constituency in Congress. OTL, Whig leaders in the House considered impeachment based on the theory that vetoes based on policy disagreement rather than Constitutional concerns were an abuse of power, but they decided to hold off and wait for a stronger justification (which never arrived), but "Maladministration" is a better fit for their reasons for wanting to get rid of Tyler.

Johnson came within one vote of being removed IOTL with 10 Republican Senators voting to acquit. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of those ten would have voted differently if "Maladministration" had been an impeachable offence.
 
The real obstacle to impeachment is not the "high crimes and misdemeanors" requirement but the 2/3 vote needed for conviction in the Senate. Very seldom is the Senate so overwhelmingly dominated by one party as to enable a partisan drive for impeachment to succeed. (You may say that's only a limit on convictions by the Senate, not on impeachments by the House--but too many impeachments without convictions would simply discredit the impeachers.)
 

zhropkick

Banned
As a non-American, how would your country have defined "maladministration" exactly? Seems like a vague term to me.
 
As a non-American, how would your country have defined "maladministration" exactly? Seems like a vague term to me.
It wouldn't be defined, it'd be whatever Congress decides is maladministration, just like what high crimes and misdemeanors means is up to the whims of Congress.
 
The Federalist Papers advocated impeachment based on misconduct or neglect for judges. Yet, despite this hugely influential document promoting it, judicial impeachment isn’t really a thing.

I imagine presidential impeachment would be the same.
 
Given George III's mental issues, I'm surprised that the bar for impeachment/removal isn't a little lower; not to the point of maladministration, but to include a provision for incompetence.
 
Given George III's mental issues, I'm surprised that the bar for impeachment/removal isn't a little lower; not to the point of maladministration, but to include a provision for incompetence.

The problem with that is you're going beyond a question of illegality or abuse of power to a subjective standard of what makes a President incompetent. Democrats would have used this charge to argue in favor of impeaching Lincoln in 1863 for the Emancipation Proclamation, which they considered a colossal mistake. The same goes for the GOP trying to impeach FDR for enacting Social Security. Neither attempt would succeed since both of these parties were in the minority at the time, but including "incompetence" would make every single Presidential act liable for impeachment since any action could theoretically be portrayed as "incompetent" by his or her enemies.
 
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