WILL THE PRESIDENT GET IMPEACHED?
By Brendan Ho
Midterm Elections:
President Barack Obama is in some deep trouble. During the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 4th, republicans gained control of the senate for the first time since 2006 AND increased their majority in the house of representatives. This is very bad for democrats and Barack Obama because now, the republicans have control of the house AND the senate.
These charts below show republicans winning seats to the house the senate, and governor seats in most states in the U.S..
MIDTERM ELECTION RESULTS:
Governor:
Senate:
House:
Impeachment:
As for the president getting impeached, it is not very likely. In order to get impeached, you have to get over half of the house to vote you off. Since there are more republicans than democrats in the house of representatives, they can easily do it. The problem is, after that, you have to get two-thirds of the senate to convict you, and that is really hard, even with the republican majority in the senate. Even if there was over two thirds of republicans in the senate, most republicans, even with their disagreement with Obama and the democrats on almost everything, aren’t on board with the impeachment idea. Only two presidents have made it through the first step of the impeachment process: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. A third, President Richard Nixon, left office before the senate could put him on trial. None of these presidents made it through the second part of the process.
What is it with Republicans and Democrats?
Republicans and democrats have been feuding since even before their official foundings, in the early-mid 1800’s. Democrats and Republicans disagree on almost everything, from abortion to taxes. Some issues are somewhat agreed upon, such as gay rights and national security. Almost every politician belongs in one of these parties. The only thing that is holding back Republicans and Democrats from working together are their beliefs. Republicans are conservative, which means they are reluctant to journey far off of tradition. Democrats are mostly liberals, which means that they are open to new behaviors and traditions and are O.K. with something out of the ordinary.
Obama’s Reputation:
President Obama has a mixed reputation in terms of what he did during his presidency. Some of the many things he has done was to pass the affordable care act in 2011. This enabled 32 million americans to get affordable health care. He also ended the war in Iraq, sending the last of the American troops home on December 18th, 2011. Some of the things he was criticized for was that the nation’s credit rating dropped from AAA to AA because he was spending so much money. Also, under Obama, the NSA was caught spying on millions of americans on their cell phones. As you can see, Obama has done many good and bad things during his presidency, but I think that this is definitely not enough to get Obama impeached.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment#United_States