WI: The Democrats got a House majority in the 1998 midterms

That implies more serious efforts than OTL at impeachment. Losing a house majority over it might convince them to tone down the emphasis on trying to play to "morality"/get socon voters. You get Dubya in 2000 still but with an actual popular vote lead over gore* with Dubya's vote losses to buchanan being countered by people voting for someone who walks the tightrope of being a man of faith while being a conservative able to speak more than one sentence without mentioning Jesus.

net effect is likely a slow motion version of OTL's post-2015 beginnings of evolution in the GOP to tone down the social conservatism a bit. OTL but with better rep numbers in house/senate 2000-on and say cut HRC's PV lead in 2016 by half and give Trump a couple of the close states. No real policy shifts imo. Maybe you get democrats remaining more like their 2000s selves than OTL, who knows.

* Not a majority because Nader and some people defecting to Buchanan.
 
The Republicans still impeached Clinton before the end of the Congressional term but since the House of Representatives is not a continuing body like the Senate, the new Congress with a Democratic majority refuses to pass a resolution to carry over the impeachment and there is no trial in the Senate.
 
The Republicans still impeached Clinton before the end of the Congressional term but since the House of Representatives is not a continuing body like the Senate, the new Congress with a Democratic majority refuses to pass a resolution to carry over the impeachment and there is no trial in the Senate.

The next House does not have to reaffirm the previous House's impeachment. The prevailing rule is that "Articles of impeachment presented to the Senate in one Congress remain pending in the next one." "[FN:] 152. HOUSE MANUAL, supra note 10, § 592, at 307, § 620, at 328; RIDDICK & FRUMIN, supra note 8, at 875. One could attack the historical precedents in various ways and question their consistency with constitutional principles. See BRUCE ACKERMAN, THE CASE AGAINST LAMEDUCK IMPEACHMENT 42–44, 57–64 (1999). Here we are just trying to lay out objectively what the prevailing practices are."
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/deliver...2099022096124110097116101066114013067&EXT=pdf
 
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