Experts Worry Increased Use of Impeachment Beginning to Undermine Democracy

Tuesday, October 10th, 2023 -- 11:01 AM

(AP) Republicans in Wisconsin are threatening to impeach a recently elected state Supreme Court justice and raised the possibility of doing the same to the state’s election director.

A Georgia Republican called for impeaching the Fulton County prosecutor who brought racketeering charges against former President Donald Trump. Republicans in the Pennsylvania House have already impeached the top prosecutor in Philadelphia.

None of the targets met the bar traditionally set for impeachment, credible allegations of committing a crime while in office. Their offense: staking out positions legislative Republicans didn’t like.

As Republicans in Congress begin their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, the process is calling attention to the increasing use of impeachment in the states as a partisan political weapon rather than as a step of last resort for officeholders believed to have committed a serious offense.

It’s not just impeachment. Over the past two years, Republicans also have sought to pry Democrats and nonpartisan executives from office through recalls, legislative maneuvers and forced removals, even when no allegations of wrongdoing have surfaced.

To some, the moves appear anti-democratic, actions that could have major implications if they become routine and supplant the ballot box as the final arbiter of an election.

“If voters cannot go to the voting booth and cast their ballot without the fear of an election being vacated and their vote being rendered null and void, what’s the point of having elections in the first place?” said Melissa Agard, a Democrat who is the Senate minority leader in Wisconsin. “This is the fundamental promise of our nation.”

The political power moves have most recently been on display in her state and generated national attention. Republican legislative leaders there have threatened to impeach a liberal Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, who won her seat by more than 10 percentage points this year in an election that flipped the Wisconsin court to liberal control for the first time in 15 years.

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