The Clinton Scandal in Retrospect

The Clinton Scandal in RetrospectAuthor(s): Mark J. Rozell and Clyde WilcoxSource: PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 538-540Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/420640 .

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SYMPOSIUM

The Clinton Scandal in Retrospect On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clin- ton. The first article, passed by a vote of 228-206, charged that the president had given "perjurious, false and misleading testimony to a federal grand jury" (Cong. Rec. 1998, H12040). The second article, passed by a vote of 221-212, charged that the president had committed obstruction of justice in the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Paula Corbin Jones (Cong. Rec. 1998, H12042). Clinton thus became only the second president in the nation's history to be impeached by Con- gress. He also was the first elected president in history to suffer that fate.

Clinton faced the prospect of also being the first president in history to be re- moved from office. A two-thirds majority

by Mark J. Rozell The Catholic University of America Clyde Wilcox Georgetown University

vote in the Senate on either article of impeachment would have required the president to vacate his office and turn the presidency

over to Vice President Al Gore. On Feb- ruary 12, 1999, the U.S. Senate voted not to remove Clinton from office. Neither article of impeachment mustered even a simple majority in favor of removing Clin- ton.

The Clinton scandal consumed the bet- ter part of a year of American public life. In January 1998, news reports revealed that the president had engaged in extra- marital sexual relations with a young former White House intern. More damag- ing still, the nation learned that by previ- ously denying the affair the president possibly had committed perjury in a legal deposition while under questioning about his past sexual relations. Many respected political observers declared that the president was finished, that it was merely a matter of days or at most weeks before he would have to relinquish his office in dis- grace. The public, they reasoned, would never stand for a president who commit-

ted such serious crimes and violated his oath of office.

What occurred over the course of the following year was as remarkable as it was unprecedented in American public life. A popular president during a period of peace and unprecedented national pros- perity possibly stood to lose his office over lying about a sexual indiscretion. The con- troversy that ensued bitterly divided the nation, but nowhere more so than in Washington, DC, where partisan positions hardened and leaders questioned one an- other's motives and integrity.

The president's defenders said that Clinton had done what any married man in his position would have done under the circumstances: deny a sexual indiscretion to protect his marriage and his family. The president, they said, had merely "lied about sex," and did not do anything that would merit a constitutional crisis. The president's detractors said that he had committed the serious offenses of perjury and obstruction of justice and that the nature of the act that led him to commit these crimes is not recognized as a quali- fying factor under the law. The president, they said, had knowingly and repeatedly broken the law and had, therefore, violated his oath of office. Defenders re- sponded that circumstances are consid- ered when punishment is evoked, and that political capital punishment was unwar- ranted in instances of lying about a sexual affair. Detractors replied that perjury of any kind is a serious matter for the person charged with seeing that laws are en- forced.

It was nearly impossible to find a mid- dle position on the Clinton scandal. Feel- ings ran deep and there was little room to compromise. Attempts in DC to overcome the partisan rancor and bitterness through some such middling position as a vote in Congress to censure the president failed to overcome partisan roadblocks, despite widespread public support. People either wanted the investigation of the president to end and the government to return to other business, or they wanted the process to end with the removal of Clinton from office.

PSOnline www.apsanet.org 539



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President Clinton pauses before his 1998 State of the Union Address as Vice President Gore looks on. AP Photo/Greg Gibson.



Positions on the scandal divided along partisan lines. Many constitutional scholars viewed this as perhaps the most discouraging of all. Members of Congress were charged with the serious duty of voting on the issues of impeachment and removal from office on the merits of the case against the president and not according to party interests. When the votes were counted in the House, only five of 228 Republicans voted against the first article of impeachment and only five of 206 Democrats voted in favor. On the second article, only 12 Republi- cans voted against and five Democrats voted in favor. As Michael Gerhardt (2000) pointed out, Republicans cast over 95% of the votes in favor of impeachment and Democrats over 95% of the votes against impeachment. In the Senate, not a single Democrat broke with the party to vote in favor of either article of impeachment. Members of Congress said that they voted their consciences based on the merits of the case against the president; coincidentally, their consciences seem to vary al- most perfectly along party lines.1

Over the course of the Clinton scandal, leading jour- nalists and Washington pundits weighed in with their interpretations of the meaning of the events. A number of the players in the events of 1998-99 as well as some leading reporters, have written their accounts of the scandal. Some scholars played roles in testifying before congressional committees, speaking to reporters, or sign- ing petitions both pro- and anti-impeachment. With the benefit of some hindsight, the time is ripe for more in- depth scholarly assessments of the implications of the Clinton scandal for American government. The following five essays are initial scholarly analyses of important as- pects of the Clinton scandal: implications for the presidency, the Independent Counsel Statute, executive privilege, public opinion, and presidential character. These essays are initial and abbreviated drafts of more fully developed chapters (along with eight others) appearing in The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Gov- ernment (Georgetown University Press, 2000).

Note

1. To be sure, the second article of impeachment would have failed without the votes of the handful of Democrats who broke with their party.

References

Congressional Record. 105th Cong., 2d sess., 1998. Vol. 144, H12040- 12042.

Gerhardt, Michael. 2000. "The Trial and Acquittal of William Jefferson Clinton." In The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Gov- ernment, ed. Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Symposium Contributors Louis Fisher is the author of American Constitutional Law (Carolina Academic Press, 3rd ed., 1999), The Politics of Shared Power (Texas A&M University Press, 4th ed., 1998), Constitutional Conflicts between Con- gress and the President (University Press of Kansas, 4th ed., 1997), Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law, with Neal Devins (West Publishing, 2nd ed., 1996), and several other works.

Mark J. Rozell is associate professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of Executive Privilege: The Dilemma of Secrecy and Demo- cratic Accountability (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) and coeditor with Clyde Wilcox of The Clinton Scandal: Implications for Governance (Georgetown University Press, 2000).

Molly Sonner is a survey director at the Pew Re- search Center for The People & The Press. Her research interests include political socialization, public opinion, and the media.

Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY-Cortland. He is the author of eight books, including three on the presidency. Most recently, he is the author of The Politics of Gun Control (Chatham House, 2nd ed., 1998) and Politics and Con- stitutionalism (SUNY Press, 2000). He is currently serv- ing as secretary-treasurer of the Presidency Research Group.

Stephen J. Wayne is a professor of government at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House 2000 (St. Martin's Press, 2000). An ex- pert on the American presidency, he has written seven books and over 100 scholarly articles and reviews. He has been a Washington "insider" for over 30 years.

Clyde Wilcox is professor of government at George- town University. His research interests include gender politics, religion and politics, and campaign finance.

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Documents

The Clinton Scandal in Retrospect