Impeachment Vote

WASHINGTON -- The testimony in the Clinton impeachment inquiry of constitutional scholars, historians, federal prosecutors and Nixon impeachment committee members has served to elevate the deliberations with their authoritative legal points on key issues involved.At the same time, that testimony has lent an air of unreality for the simple reason that the impeachment process, which goes forward in Congress and not in the courts, is a political exercise whose outcome will be determined by politicians, not scholars and historians.

KENNETH Starr did his utmost to accumulate evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors for the House to use in impeaching President Clinton, and failed. That is the conclusion most fair-minded people take from his referral and testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, scrutinizing the Monica Lewinsky affair while omitting the more serious allegations Mr. Starr was assigned to investigate.But that is not the conclusion that the committee's Republican majority wishes to reach. Its Dec. 1 hearing looms as an exercise in public relations to persuade more American people of the gravity of the perjury charges.

A headline in yesterday's national news section incorrectl attributed to a former aide of Rep. Robert L. Livingston a statement that Livingston would prefer an impeachment vote while Newt Gingrich is speaker of the House. In fact, it was Livingston's advisers -- including the former aide -- who expressed that preference.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 11/12/98

A headline in yesterday's national news section incorrectly attributed to a former aide of Rep. Robert L. Livingston a statement that Livingston would prefer an impeachment vote while Newt Gingrich is speaker of the House. In fact, it was Livingston's advisers -- including the former aide -- who expressed that preference.The Sun regrets the error.WASHINGTON -- Even as House Republicans are increasingly consumed with their leadership struggles, presidential impeachment proceedings are advancing with remarkable speed.

Here is how members of Maryland's delegation on Capitol Hill were recorded on important roll-call votes last week:Y: Yes N: No X: Not votingHouse: ImpeachmentThe House voted, 258-176, to begin a formal, open-ended investigation into whether President Clinton committed impeachable crimes in attempting to conceal his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Thirty-one of the 206 Democrats supported the measure.A yes vote was to begin the third presidential impeachment proceeding in U.S. history.

NOTHING produced by the Starr report or the subsequent deluge of evidence and testimony comes within the historic understanding of grounds for impeachment of the president.That need not stop the House of Representatives from reinterpreting the Constitution for the next century. But should the House expand the meaning to lesser and private misdeeds, it would drastically reduce the four-year presidential term to four years pending good behavior in the eyes of one's enemies.Politics would be redefined around "gotcha"-style investigations for all office-holders to come.