Some in GOP See Benefit in Losing Vote to Impeach

With House Republicans claiming to be just short of the votes they need to impeach President Clinton on at least one count of perjury, some in the party are beginning to wonder whether the GOP would be better off losing the vote than narrowly winning it.

Even though Senate approval of convicting and removing the president from office seems all but impossible, many conservatives look forward to a House vote to impeach as an opportunity to stamp Clinton with a scarlet “I” and forever stain his place in history.

But with a razor-thin, virtually party-line majority now the best the GOP can hope for in the House, some Republicans fear that approving impeachment at a time when nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose it could expose the party to a severe voter backlash--and poison the opportunity for progress on issues such as Social Security reform and tax cuts next year.

“Nothing good is going to happen to Republicans as long as impeachment is a live issue,” says Whit Ayres, an Atlanta-based GOP pollster. “For better or worse--I happen to think for worse--the country has made up its mind that the crimes of the president are not sufficient to justify impeachment.”

Likewise, Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.), an ally of incoming House Speaker Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), has repeatedly warned his party colleagues that impeaching Clinton on a narrow partisan vote could be a disastrous miscalculation for the GOP.

“It’s a prescription for complete gridlock for the foreseeable future,” says Ken Johnson, Tauzin’s communications director. “Our great concern is it will prevent any real possibility of compromises on cutting taxes, reforming Social Security or protecting Medicare.”

Given these factors, some Republicans are reluctantly reaching the same political conclusion as Ed Gillespie, the former communications director of the Republican National Committee: “The best thing may be for it [an article of impeachment] to come to the floor and go down. Then you can say we handled it openly and . . . Republicans voted their consciences.”

In the Republicans’ weekly radio address, Sen.-elect Jim Bunning of Kentucky emphasized the importance Saturday of moving on to other issues, particularly Social Security. “Older Americans need and deserve reassurance that the program on which they depend will be there for them.”

Yet in the House, many Republicans remain drawn toward impeachment by their own outrage at Clinton’s behavior and the insistence of the party’s base that the GOP take a firm stand against a president that many conservatives have considered morally unfit for the office since he assumed it.

This tension will play out in the decisions the House leadership makes concerning a floor vote on impeachment, which is now scheduled for the week of Dec. 14 if, as expected, the House Judiciary Committee approves one or more articles of impeachment on a party-line vote next week.

Livingston and the other GOP leaders have already said they will not lobby members to vote one way or the other. But through their control of the Rules Committee, which sets the terms of floor debate, the leadership can tilt the table for or against approval. The key decision will be whether to allow a floor vote on a resolution to censure Clinton as an alternative on the same day the House decides on impeachment.

Conservatives, led by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), are actively opposing efforts to permit a vote on censure. That’s partially because they believe the Constitution does not provide for such a sanction. But it’s also because they recognize that providing wavering Republicans an alternative to register their displeasure with Clinton would diminish the odds of passage for impeachment.

Denying a vote on censure would apply further pressure on fence-sitting Republicans to support impeachment, says Johnson. “The message seems to be that we’re going to vote for impeachment, and if you don’t you should have to explain to your voters why.”

In this internal tug of war, the forces propelling Republicans toward approving impeachment--by whatever margin, at whatever political cost--might be summarized as fear and loathing.

Fear, as in fear of an uprising among the party base if impeachment is defeated. Even though a Gallup Poll last week found that 64% of Americans oppose impeachment, 68% of self-identified Republicans said they want their representatives to vote for it.

Already, the conservative magazine Human Events has labeled GOP legislators opposed to impeachment the “GOP’s pro-perjury caucus.”

“The Republican Party is going to have great turmoil if Republicans in significant numbers vote against impeachment,” warns Terence P. Jeffrey, the magazine’s editor and the campaign manager of Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign.

Buttressing fear is loathing of Clinton’s actions--both his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky and his attempts to cover it up. For many conservatives, any resolution of censure, no matter how strongly worded, is an insufficient response to such offenses; in these circles, impeachment is considered censure with teeth.

“If you want to censure the president, you vote to impeach him in the House and you don’t vote to remove him [from office] in the Senate,” says one source close to DeLay.

But others in the party warn that the satisfaction of such a symbolic vote might carry enormous political risks. Analysts cite several distinct dangers for the Republicans to a narrow passage of impeachment.

The most immediate is the threat of a sharp voter backlash if the GOP appears to be ignoring the public consensus against impeachment. From late September through mid-October, as the House was merely authorizing an impeachment inquiry, Congress’ approval rating plummeted from 55% to the low 40s in Gallup surveys. That proved critical because most voters who gave Congress positive marks voted for Republicans in November’s election, while most who disapproved voted for Democrats.

Almost all opinion analysts believe Congress’ approval rating will tumble again if the House adopts articles of impeachment; Ayres, the GOP pollster, says the positive rating could fall to as low as one-third of the electorate--the percentage that supports impeachment.

“Acting contrary to the fairly clear wishes of the public in a democracy has never been known to enhance one’s job approval,” he says dryly.

Impeachment advocates argue that, even if Congress’ public esteem dipped, Republicans would have plenty of time to recover before the next election. But approving impeachment in the House could complicate that process in two distinct respects.

First, even as voters are clamoring for an end to the controversy, an impeachment vote that sends the matter to the Senate would guarantee that it drags on into next year. During that time, it’s unlikely that Washington could focus on, or accomplish, much of anything else.

And second, as Tauzin has warned, after a rancorous vote to impeach Clinton on a virtual party-line basis, House Republicans could find it difficult to work with Democrats to produce the substantive agreements that would help Congress rebuild its approval rating.

Latest estimates suggest that impeachment can pass only if it is supported by some Republicans for whom it could be a politically dangerous vote. Democratic counts indicate that only a minimal number of the party’s House members would vote for impeachment--possibly fewer than five.

That means the GOP can only lose about 15 of its current 228 members and still pass impeachment. And that means at least half of the 30 House Republicans representing districts where Clinton carried at least 50% of the vote in the 1996 presidential election would have to vote for impeachment--and in effect vote to overturn the decision of their own constituents. That’s not an appetizing prospect at a time when swing voters remain dead set against the idea.

“A lot of their marginal people will be put in a terrible box,” says Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff for House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).