Demands For Impeachment In The United States

Impeachment in the United States is an expressed power of the legislature, which allows for formal charges to be brought against a civil officer of government for conduct committed in office. The actual trial on those charges, and subsequent removal of an official on conviction on those charges is separate from the act of impeachment itself: impeachment is analogous to indictment in regular court proceedings, trial by the other house is analogous to the trial before judge and jury in regular courts. Typically, the lower house of the legislature will impeach the official and the upper house will conduct the trial.
While actually impeaching a federal public official is a rare event, demands for impeachment, especially of presidents, are extremely common, going back to the administration of George Washington in the mid-1790s. In fact, most of the 63 resolutions mentioned above were in response to presidential actions.
While almost all of them were for the most part frivolous and were buried as soon as they were introduced, several did have their intended effect. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas both resigned in response to the threat of impeachment hearings, and most famously, President Richard Nixon left office after the House Judiciary committee had already reported articles of impeachment to the floor. In January 1843, the House defeated a motion to form a committee of impeachment of President John Tyler by a vote of 84 in favor, 127 against. In addition, the original mandate of the joint committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair was to look for evidence that might lead to the impeachment of President Ronald Reagan.
In December 2005, Rep. John Conyers chaired a subcommittee on possible impeachment actions against President George W. Bush.
In April 2007, Rep. Dennis Kucinich submitted a resolution (Resolution 333) to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney; like all resolutions, his resolution was referred to a Committee (in this case, the Judiciary Committee) and the Committee has no plans to schedule debate or a hearing on his resolution.
In 2007, a group of Democrats in the U.S. House sought impeachment hearings by the Judiciary Committee against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
On November 6, 2007, the House referred an impeachment motion, Resolution 333, pressed again by Kucinich, against Vice President Cheney to the House Judiciary Committee for further study. The Democrats wanted this motion killed, but Republicans forced them to push the measure into the House Judiciary Committee for further discussion. There has also been a discussion as well to impeach President George W. Bush over similar actions to what Cheney has been accused of.
In December 2007 three members of the House Judiciary Committee; Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); wrote an article endorsing impeachment, and began collecting signatures on a petition for impeachment of vice president Dick Cheney