Politico reports, "Small group of Democrats floats censure instead of impeachment."
A small group of vulnerable House Democrats is floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the conversations.
Those Democrats, all representing districts that Trump won in 2016, huddled on Monday afternoon in an 11th-hour bid to weigh additional — though unlikely — options to punish the president for his role in the Ukraine scandal as the House speeds toward an impeachment vote next week.
The group of about 10 Trump-district lawmakers included Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah.).
The Constitution specifically grants authority to the House and the Senate to impeach and remove from office a president. There is no mention of "censure" anywhere in the Constitution. The Senate and the House have used censure since the 1800s to call to account members of their own bodies, such power being granted by Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2, which says that “each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”
Although "censure" is not there, the clause cannot be reasonably said to exclude it. However, it unambiguously limits each chamber's punitive authority and power to its own members, except for impeachment of a president or other member of the executive or legislative branches, authorized by Article 1, Sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution.
The Constitution Center reports of the first attempt to censure a president, done by the Senate in 1832 against President Andrew Jackson.
These facts weren’t lost on President Andrew Jackson in 1834 when he faced the first-ever censure motion against a sitting President. Jackson was locked in a fierce battle against Henry Clay and the Whigs over the Second Bank of the United States.If the House does try to censure President Trump, I hope he tells them to stuff it, that they can impeach him or just live with it. For the Constitution gives them no other power.
In 1832, Jackson vetoed a congressional move to re-charter the bank; the Whig-controlled Senate and Clay asked Jackson to supply notes from his Cabinet meeting about the veto decision and Jackson refused to supply the documents. Clay then led the censure motion, which passed by a 26-20 vote.
“Resolved, That the President, in the late Executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both,” the motion read.
Jackson’s response was quite longer.
“I thus find myself charged on the records of the Senate, and in a form hitherto unknown in our history, with the high crime of violating the laws and Constitution of my country,” he wrote in a letter to the Senate.
“The resolution of the Senate is wholly unauthorized by the Constitution, and in derogation of its entire spirit. It assumes that a single branch of the legislative department may for the purposes of a public censure, and without any view to legislation or impeachment, take up, consider, and decide upon the official acts of the Executive. But in no part of the Constitution is the President subjected to any such responsibility, and in no part of that instrument is any such power conferred on either branch of the Legislature,” Jackson added.
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