ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the nature of American impeachment reflects the nature of the American two-party system, and thus how changes to the two-party system have changed impeachment. Section 9.2 examines the original design of impeachment in the Constitution, which did not envision a two-party system. Section 9.3 looks at the beginnings of the two-party system, how it changed the nature of impeachment and how the two then evolved in parallel. Section 9.4 considers the effects on presidential impeachment of the recent evolution of the two-party system into a ‘two-reality’ system. Section 9.5 concludes by analyzing the current state of American presidential impeachment: What might get a president impeached today? What might get a president convicted and removed today? To what extent does the impeachment process constrain presidential behavior even when the prospect for removal is limited?
