Home

NIU professor writes book about impeachment as a political tool

Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2008-05-06 13:29.

By DAVID THOMAS, Northern Star

American politicians are finding new uses for impeachment, according to research by NIU professor David Kyvig.

Kyvig’s research has culminated in a books, “The Age of Impeachment: American Constitutional Culture Since 1960,” was published April 28.

Impeachment is the process of indicting a public official for criminal behavior, as outlined in Article Two, Section Four of the Constitution. The House of Representatives votes to impeach, while the Senate tries the individual.

Kyvig said he has found as much impeachment activity from 1960 to the present as the country has from its founding to the 1960s.

“It is a reflection of an increasingly-toxic political scene between not only the political parties, but between Congress and the White House,” Kyvig said, indicating that impeachment is becoming a political tool.

From 1960 to the present, there have been 12 proposed impeachments, three of which were against presidents.

Kyvig’s book covers the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached, as well as the 1980s, when impeachment against President Ronald Reagan was considered because of the Iran-Contra affair. The book also covers the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton became the second U.S. president to be impeached and tried by Congress.

As a result of these impeachment processes, Kyvig said, both Congress and the White House have learned different things. Congress is learning how to conduct impeachments more efficiently, while presidents are learning “what they can get away with.”

Kyvig’s research into the topic began in 1999, when he first came to NIU to teach. He was asked to teach a course in American history, 1960-present, and Clinton’s impeachment was still fresh in the public mind.

His interest in the subject increased. When Kyvig took a semester off for research in spring 2002, he began to seriously consider the topic of impeachment to research. As Kyvig taught NIU students, he found that a large number were unfamiliar with the subject.

“I wanted to do something that would be not only enlightening to these students, but to others, as well,” Kyvig said. “If NIU students didn’t [know] much about it, then a lot of other people knew less.”

Kyvig’s research took him to Washington, D.C., and to universities around the country. He interviewed figures such as John Dean, White House counsel under Nixon (1970-1973), and Bob Woodward, one of the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story.

On May 14, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan institute for advanced study based in Washington D.C., will host a book launch for Kyvig’s book. The event will be covered by C-SPAN and will feature commentators James Reston Jr., a senior scholar at the Wilson Center, and Linda Greenhouse, a Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times.

»