--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again. With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent, Vox. Is the president about to get impeached again? It sure looks like it. Has that ever happened before? Twice in one term? No, this would be an historic first for President Trump. history maker, if nothing else.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: But there's also this question of the 25th Amendment. What's up with that? So Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the president's cabinet to choose to take away the president's powers if they conclude that he is unable to exercise the powers and duties of his office.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And this has never been invoked in history, and obviously it hasn't been invoked under the Trump administration yet. But after Trump's actions last week with the storming of the Capitol, there was a new round of discussion about it. And Democrats took the position that Pence and the cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment now.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: The problem is that they are not doing so. Several Trump cabinet secretaries have resigned rather than stayed in office to the point where their 25th Amendment vote could be needed. But the bigger picture is that Mike Pence does not seem to be on board with this, even after the chaos at the Capitol put his personal safety at risk.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: He doesn't want to go this far, and his consent is necessary to invoke the 25th Amendment. Okay, 25th Amendment is a bit of a pipe dream. In the meantime, there's impeachment, and the Democrats are leading the charge.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they released one article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection, and it criticizes Trump for inflaming the crowd with false claims that the election was stolen and for not respecting our democracy and the peaceful transition of power.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: It focuses mostly on the Capitol storming, but it also references his attempts to interfere with state certifications of election results and the recent corrupt phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to find votes for him in Georgia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that's in there, too. It's four pages long. It's a quick read. And the conclusion is that Trump should be removed from office and barred from holding future office.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I know it seems obvious to some what role the president played last week in the insurrection. But could we just spell it out? What evidence or justifications are Democrats giving for this charge of incitement of insurrection?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: What they're focusing on is Trump's longer-term campaign to dispute the election results with various lies and conspiracy theories. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And also his, on the very day of the insurrection, the speech that Trump gave to his crowd, urging them to fight like hell, insisting he was still the true winner, telling them to go down to the Capitol, telling him falsely that he was going to go down to the Capitol with them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down. We're going to walk down. Anyone you want. But I think right here, we're going to walk down. To the Capitol.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And so the impeachment article goes on to say that thus incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced members of Congress, the vice president and congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive and seditious acts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And though a lot of Republicans were willing to immediately move on and continue to validate the president's false claims about the election. This is something new and deeply dangerous in American politics, what happened last Wednesday, yes?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Certainly in modern times, this really has not— there's nothing really that we can point to that's similar. A mob storming the Capitol, trying to prevent the certification and approval of the legitimate election results at the behest of the president of the United States.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's really stunning stuff. We're probably quite lucky that the bloodshed wasn't even worse. Capitol police discovered two pipe bombs in the area around the Capitol complex. More than 50 officers were hurt in those attacks on the Capitol, several of them hospitalized.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There newer reporting and video analysis that members of Congress were not too far from the mob And it was a close thing that their own security managed to spirit them away A Capitol Police officer whose quick thinking may have saved lives in the Senate last Wednesday Officer Eugene Goodman outnumbered dozens to one, was chased up the steps by an angry mob.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can see as he reaches the Senate floor. We're talking minutes. We're talking luck at one point that a group of rioters turn the wrong way rather than keep going to the Senate chamber.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So, yeah, I do think that it's pretty clear that this was unprecedented and Democrats think we need to have a response to this to protect the rule of law. But Republicans are, as is so often the case, not so sure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know the vote isn't until tomorrow, but are there any Republicans in the House of Representatives who have supported this impeachment measure?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There have been some Republicans who have been very critical of Trump. It's not yet entirely clear whether or how many of them will vote for impeachment. There's been talk of as many as 10 out of the more than 200 House Republicans voting for impeachment, which does not sound like very much, but zero voted for it the last time Trump was impeached.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it would be a bit of an improvement. But when it comes to vote counting, the real question is in the Senate, because the House can impeach Trump with a simple majority. They don't need any Republican support.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So how are things looking in the Senate for a conviction, which we should remind people did not happen the last time? Well, first of all, it's not even clear when the Senate would hold a trial for Trump if the House impeaches him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the impeachment will take place with seven days left in Trump's term. And then there's another complication, which is that the Georgia Senate special election results won by Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff have not yet been certified. So Republicans still control the Senate. Mitch McConnell is still the majority leader.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So he still has the upper hand in deciding what to do about this until Georgia's results are certified probably later in January, which would make the Senate 50-50. And then Democrats also need Vice President Kamala Harris to be sworn in to give them a tie-breaking vote and the official Senate majority.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the upshot is that for the near term, it's still going to be Republicans in the Senate who are deciding how to deal with this. Do we know how much support there is for conviction in the Senate?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I think under the current state of affairs, they would likely not have the votes to convict. But, you know, this was a scary event that put a lot of senators in personal jeopardy and could have spurred some of them to rethink things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think the other important thing we need to discuss is that removing Trump from office at this point only would shave a couple days off his term. The main thing that's on politicians' minds now is the other penalty allowed by the Constitution for someone who's convicted of an impeachment, which is to disqualify them from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States in the future.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So the main interpretation of this is that this would prevent Donald Trump from being president again. And if you think that Trump is a bad influence on the Republican Party, that he's a somewhat unique threat to democracy, that he's a cancer on the party, as many Republicans have said from time to time, then that would seem to be a good solution to just take Trump out of the equation for 2024.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Even some of those Senate Republicans who support him, like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, they're looking to run for president themselves. And they surely won't want Trump competing with them in 2024.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And that is an interesting calculation for Republicans. Where does the public stand on this? Public opinion, polling, the United States of America. Where does it stand after witnessing its Capitol building ransacked by a bunch of yahoos last week?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So large majorities in polls say they disapprove of what happened, dislike what happened. But support for actually removing Trump from office is surprisingly tepid. Narrow majorities are in support of it. It basically looks like the impeachment polling last time, more or less.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: If there is a major change in Republican thinking on this matter of whether Trump should be convicted, it would have to happen at the elite level. And it would not be something that their voters are pushing on them. In fact, it would be somewhat in defiance of those voters' wishes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Here we are. In the second week of 2021, we've had an insurrection, a riot, people died, pipe bombs were planted. But still, Republicans immediately voted to object to the certification of President-elect Biden's win. And still, Republican voters don't seem that interested in convicting the president or barring him from office.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And thus, ditto from Republican leadership, at least so far. So if you're worried nothing matters, you've got good reason. But here's a twist. Our next guest argues that impeachment isn't enough to prevent the country's slip and slide to authoritarianism. He says the real fix is voter reform.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's in a minute on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Chime Nobody likes fans Thank you you can be eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Rick Hassan, you specialize in election law at UC Irvine, but you also just wrote a piece for Slate in which you argue that impeachment isn't enough. How come?
--:-- Rick Hassan: Well, the problem is that even with Trump gone from the White House, Trumpism and the threat of authoritarianism will continue. That's why it's important that even after Trump has left office, that he be disqualified from running again, that he not be able to put back together a coalition that is not willing to fight fairly in elections.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's why we need to have other efforts that will promote moderate Republicans and make both parties in the business of trying to increase their tents, make their parties as appealing to voters as possible, as opposed to trying to rely upon voter suppression as a means of staying in power.
--:-- Rick Hassan: And that's why we need fundamental voting reforms, because we can't trust that the kinds of things that happened this past election won't be repeated again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So one thing that is important to do, I think, is to play what David Posen called constitutional anti-hardball. The idea is that we need to use all of the available tools possible that Democrats have to try to create fair conditions for our elections.
--:-- Rick Hassan: So it might take something kind of hardball move like killing the filibuster for voting reform so that it only takes a majority of senators rather than 60 senators to get something through the Senate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've talked about getting rid of the filibuster on the show before, but here you're talking about getting rid of one specific aspect of the filibuster or one part of the filibuster for a specific thing?
--:-- Rick Hassan: So you may remember that before the Republicans took back control, when Democrats still had control of the Senate, they eliminated the filibuster for judicial appointments aside from the Supreme Court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And when the Republicans took over during the Trump era, they eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments. I'm suggesting a further exception to the filibuster rules, which would apply to election and voting legislation.
--:-- Rick Hassan: And how many votes would it take to do that? So it would take 51 votes under the so-called nuclear option, which is what's been used before. That is, the president of the Senate, in this case, the vice president, would simply declare that it takes 51 votes to make this kind of change, and a majority would vote for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, it's not going to be easy because there are Democrats like Joe Manchin who've expressed concern about eliminating the filibuster. I think my proposal has a better chance of success because it wouldn't fully eliminate the filibuster. It would just eliminate the filibuster to make voting changes.
--:-- Rick Hassan: Okay, your argument is that impeachment is necessary as well as some conviction that ensures President Trump can't run again. But that's not enough to stop the United States from sliding towards authoritarianism. For that, we'd need serious voting reforms.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And for serious voting reforms, Democrats need to play hardball, get rid of the filibuster for matters concerning voter reform. If they did that, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, what would you propose they accomplish? Which reforms?
--:-- Rick Hassan: Well, at the top of my list are things like admitting Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico estates, assuming that the residents would want such a thing. That would change the balance of power in the Senate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I believe at least the residents of Washington, D.C. are highly in favor of such a thing. Yes, I think that's true. I think it's a bigger question as to Puerto Rico.
--:-- Rick Hassan: I would also restore parts of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court killed off in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder case, as well as put in expanded voting rights protections, such as requiring every state in congressional elections to offer some form of early voting, either in-person or absentee voting, or both.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I would also favor changes that would be geared towards improving the position of moderates among Republicans so that that wing of the party would be more successful in being able to hold power without the Trumpist wing being able to primary those members.
--:-- Rick Hassan: One way to do that would be to have redistricting reform, reform which would be aimed at for example requiring the use of nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions to draw congressional district lines That well within Congress power to do
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I guessing if a Republican legislator of a certain ideology would hear these reforms to voting that you're proposing, he or she might just say, wait, you're just trying to give Democrats more seats in the Senate.
--:-- Rick Hassan: Well, I think part of it is giving Democrats more seats in the Senate because the Senate is an institution that is very seriously weighted towards Republicans. You have a small minority of members of the United States that are overrepresented in a system that gives the same representation to senators, to Wyoming, which has well under a million residents, and California, which has over 30 million residents.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The idea is that the Senate is a non-democratic, small d, non-democratic institution. And things that could be done to make it more reflective of the one-person, one-vote ideal that is applied everywhere in our government, aside from in the Senate and in the Electoral College, would be a good thing.
--:-- Rick Hassan: But this is not just about helping Democrats. It's also about helping moderate Republicans and creating a more responsible two-party system where both parties fairly compete for votes, not by trying to shrink the electorate as the Trumpist Republicans have been trying to do, but instead to create a situation where both parties are trying to compete for more voters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just to continue playing devil's advocate here, wouldn't some argue that the Senate has always been an anti-small-D democratic institution and that was the intent of its design?
--:-- Rick Hassan: Well, whether that was the intent or not, it doesn't serve our purposes today. And today, given the threat that we face from authoritarian forces in the United States, I think recalibrating the power of the Senate is something that is part of the answer to the question of how we assure that we continue to be a democracy that reflects the will of the people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do you think there's a sort of an exigency to do this soon before people forget what happened last week, before the trauma of this insurrection fades away?
--:-- Rick Hassan: I think there's an urgency not only because of people's memories fading about how serious the Capitol assault was, but also because Democrats who are going to be the driving force behind these changes may not be able to maintain their control on the Senate and the House and the presidency for the same times.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is the time to make change. Would that change come at the expense of President-elect Joe Biden's ambitions for his first hundred days?
--:-- Rick Hassan: If Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is saying, okay, real quick, though, let's fundamentally change the Senate and make other voting reforms, might that stall, let's say, the political will for really serious stimulus spending or really serious environmental spending or, you know, massive reform on health care, something like that?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a very tough time to be advocating for change when there needs to be so much change elsewhere and when the COVID health and economic crisis has to be dealt with and climate change has to be dealt with.
--:-- Rick Hassan: But this is a very narrow window that's available. And I think democracy has to be near the top of the list.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is anyone out there making the argument that, you know, up to this point, there's been this sort of forgive and forget tendency that's accompanied the peaceful transfer of power in American politics? You know, President Obama didn't go after President Bush for what a lot of people around the world were calling war crimes in Iraq.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Since this peaceful transfer of power hasn't been all that peaceful this time around is it time to sort of ditch the forgive and forget tendency in american politics?
--:-- Rick Hassan: I think forgive and forget can be a very useful thing to do and I don't know that it was necessarily wrong in earlier transitions of power this one is qualitatively different we've not had a president like trump who's actively sought to overturn the results of the election through the courts through legislative action, through trying to get election officials to manufacture votes, to trying to get his supporters to physically block the acceptance of Joe Biden's votes in the Congress.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so this is not the time to forgive or forget. This is the time for concerted action to restore American democracy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Professor, thank you so much. Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Rick Hassan, he's the author of a book titled Election Meltdown, Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy. I'm Sean Rameswaram for him. This is today Explained. The team includes Muj Zaidy, Halima Shah, Will Reed, Amina Al-Sadi, and Noam Hassenfeld.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Afim Shapiro is our engineer. Golda Arthur is our supervising producer. Facts checked by Cecilia Lay, music by Breakmaster Cylinder and sometimes Noam.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Liz Kelly Nelson is Vox's editorial director of podcasts, and today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you. Liberty, Liberty. Savings very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
