| Mmmm, Burger (C.J.) |
04-05-2005 08:49 PM |
I knew it
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is an interesting question, evocative perhaps of Chadha. If it would take another vote of Congress to impeach a judge, then what difference would it make? So to give the statute effect, it might be that Shelby means that someone can impeach a judge by going to court to enforce the statute. But then a judge could narrow the effect of the jurisdiction-limiting provision by ruling that whatever the judge did was not bad behavior. But maybe that statute would be unconstitutional, under a sort of non-delegation doctrine. So does the whole thing get tossed?
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I don't see how it delegates to a court. Are you saying that a dissatisfied litigant could simply go into another court and say a judge should be impeached by the court? I can't imagine that would be permitted by any court--it's quite clear that the sole power of impeachment is in the House and the power to try all impeachment cases lies in the Senate.
I think fringey's on the right track, but I don't think that any vote would be compelled. If so, couldn't Congress have passed a statute saying that "any president who lies under oath shall be impeached", and then on that basis alone impeached and convicted clinton? methinks not.
Now, I suppose there's some possible value in the provision as fringe suggests, which is that exercising jurisdiction improperly gives rise to an inference, or a presumption, of a high crime/misdemeanor/non-good behavior, such that a milquetoast rep. could say "while I think that the courts should be able to decide cases, it's quite clear that judge slothrop here violated the statute passed by congress and for that reason I vote to impeach." In other words, it's a bootstrap cover. |
