If impeachment comes to the Senate – 5 questions answered

Editor’s note: If the House of Representatives concludes its impeachment inquiry by passing articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump, attention will turn to the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is known as a master of the Senate’s rules, and has been raising campaign donations with ads touting the power he would have over impeachment proceedings. Constitutional scholar Sarah Burns from the Rochester Institute of Technology answers some crucial questions already arising about what McConnell might be able to do, to either slow down the process or speed things along.

1. Will the Senate even take up a House impeachment?

The Constitution does not give any details about exactly how an impeachment trial should proceed. Instead, the Senate itself has set rules that govern the process. The first of those rules says the Senate must receive members of the House of Representatives to present the articles of impeachment – which McConnell has said he will do, should they pass the House.

The rules go on to say that senators have 24 hours to “proceed to consideration of such articles” and must continue until they reach a “final judgment.”

However, the Senate can adapt or change its rules, often by a simple majority vote. That means McConnell and other senators are much more free to take actions that influence the trial than members of a jury or even the judge in a standard criminal proceeding.

View the complete October 15 article by Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, on the Conversation website here.