Briefs: When Impeachment Becomes Routine

An extraordinary constitutional remedy is increasingly being treated like ordinary partisan warfare.

My concern is not merely theoretical. It arises in part from the recent wave of impeachment filings, which suggests that impeachment is becoming less an extraordinary remedy and more a routine political tactic.

Impeachment was never meant to be ordinary. It was designed as one of the Constitution’s gravest remedies, reserved for conduct so serious that ordinary politics could no longer be trusted to correct it. That is why the historical record matters. The House has initiated impeachment proceedings more than 60 times in American history, yet only 21 of those efforts have resulted in actual House impeachments, and only 8 officials have ultimately been convicted and removed by the Senate. All eight were federal judges. By any reasonable standard, impeachment was intended to be exceptional, not routine. [1]

That does not mean impeachment was ever free of politics. It was not. The impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase in 1804–05 made that clear very early. Chase was accused in a deeply charged political environment, and his acquittal helped establish an important norm: impeachment should not be used simply because an official is biased, abrasive, or politically objectionable. It was one of the young republic’s first warnings that impeachment, if used carelessly, could become a vehicle for partisan punishment rather than constitutional accountability. [2]

The impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 showed a different side of the problem. That case was not trivial or theatrical. It unfolded during Reconstruction, when the country was still trying to shape the postwar order. Johnson survived conviction by a single vote. The episode demonstrated both how politically explosive impeachment could be and how reluctant the Senate could be to cross the line into removal, even amid a true constitutional crisis. [3]

So the modern problem is not that impeachment has suddenly become political. It always carried a political dimension. The real change is that impeachment now seems to be invoked far more frequently and with far less restraint. For much of American history, impeachment remained rare enough to preserve a sense of constitutional gravity. In recent decades, that restraint has weakened. The American Historical Association has argued that the Clinton impeachment helped establish “new norms” in which impeachment became a more openly partisan tool, shaped by media cycles, public relations battles, and political incentives beyond the constitutional merits alone. [4]

Since then, the pace has quickened. Donald Trump was impeached twice. House Republicans then moved toward impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden even as Reuters reported that they had yet to produce evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself. In 2024, Alejandro Mayorkas became only the second cabinet secretary ever impeached by the House, and the Senate swiftly dismissed the charges. Most recently, articles of impeachment have been filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Whether one believes each of these episodes was justified or not, the pattern is hard to miss: impeachment is increasingly part of the normal vocabulary of partisan escalation. [1][5]

That should concern citizens of every political persuasion. Once impeachment becomes a familiar reflex, its threshold begins to fall. What was once reserved for unmistakable corruption, abuse of office, or lawless defiance of constitutional duty can gradually be repurposed for policy disputes, ideological anger, or political theater. The word "impeachment" is heard so often in the country that it loses its force. A mechanism intended to signal exceptional danger starts to sound like background noise.

There is another danger as well: retaliation. Once one party becomes comfortable using impeachment aggressively, the other party acquires both an incentive and a rationale to do the same. The process then feeds on itself. Each side points to the other’s last impeachment as justification for the next one. What was supposed to be a constitutional last resort becomes, in effect, a recurring tactic in partisan warfare. That is corrosive not only to the impeachment power itself, but to Congress as an institution. Congress has many tools at its disposal—hearings, oversight, subpoenas, appropriations, censure, legislation, and, ultimately, elections. If impeachment becomes the default dramatic gesture, those other tools begin to look secondary, and the public sees Congress less as a steward of constitutional order than as a stage for perpetual escalation.

The irony is that overuse can make impeachment less effective when it is genuinely needed. Some conduct may truly warrant it. But the more casually the word is invoked, the harder it becomes to persuade the country that a particular case is truly extraordinary. Overuse breeds numbness. It lowers trust. It makes it more difficult for citizens to distinguish between routine political conflict and conduct so grave that removal from office must seriously be considered.

That is why the issue is bigger than any one official, any one administration, or any one party. The danger is not simply that impeachment is partisan. It always has been, to some degree. The greater danger is that impeachment is becoming ordinary. And once a constitutional remedy of last resort becomes business as usual, the country has weakened one of the few safeguards meant to stand above ordinary politics.

A healthier norm would be simpler and stricter. Impeachment should remain available, but it should be reserved for unmistakable corruption, clear abuse of power, grave dereliction of constitutional duty, or conduct so serious that ordinary political remedies are inadequate. Everything else—however frustrating, however offensive, however politically charged—should ordinarily be handled through oversight, elections, legislation, and public argument. A serious republic must preserve the difference between disagreement and disqualification.

Impeachment has always been political. What is new, and more dangerous, is the possibility that it is becoming routine.

References

[1] U.S. House of Representatives, Impeachment — History, Art & Archives.

[2] U.S. Senate, Impeachment Trial of Justice Samuel Chase, 1804–05.

[3] U.S. Senate, Impeachment Trial of President Andrew Johnson, 1868.

[4] American Historical Association, History of Presidential Impeachment.

[5] Reuters coverage of the Biden impeachment inquiry, the Mayorkas impeachment, and the recent impeachment escalation in Congress.