When Vermont’s, San Francisco’s, and Other Cities’ and Towns’ Constituents Call For Impeachment of the President and Vice-President, Must Their Federal Representatives Listen?
The Ethics of Representative-Constituent Relations
By ETHAN J. LEIB AND DAVID PONET
The results of the 2006 midterm election were widely interpreted as a rebuke to the Republican Party, and some voters made it quite explicit that they thought Administration actions had been not just bad policy, but grounds for impeachment.
…It is not at all clear, it turns out, what a good representative is to do when her constituents are demanding that she pursue impeachment. Representatives might routinely swear support to the Constitution of the United States (in accordance with Article VI) – a stately authority, to be sure – but their relationships with their constituents are not channeled through any oath or affirmation that could enable them to figure out how to execute their discretionary right to impeach under the U.S. Constitution’s provisions.
They don’t have to impeach, but they do have to uphold and protect the Constitution. Congress and the White House aren’t doing either of those and need to be removed.