ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the most disturbing aspects of the politics of the William Jefferson Clinton impeachment and emphasizes how the politics of impeachment was, in its basic contours, politics as usual. Impeachment's supporters made every effort to describe their behavior in terms that lent a representational air to their motives. They frequently cited the "public interest" and claimed that they were acting in the public interest regardless of the tone of public opinion: straight trustee language. The importance of elections for the maintenance of a vital representative democracy does not depend on the positive manifestation of public preferences in the behavior of representatives subsequent to the elections. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for reform that might really change our current system of representation for the better and explains why other reforms—reforms that appear to have some chance of being enacted—are unlikely to produce significant change.
