Keep Trial Fully Open

Unless the Senate changes one of its rules for conducting President Clinton’s impeachment trial, the public will not be allowed to witness crucial parts, including a possible climactic debate on whether to convict Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate should change this archaic rule; the trial’s inestimable national importance demands that the proceedings be completely open.

For guidance in the trial, which opens Thursday, the Senate is relying on rules adopted in 1868, when Andrew Johnson became the first and until now the only president to be tried for alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. One of those rules compels “the doors to be closed” whenever senators debate among themselves, something they are allowed to do only when deciding procedural issues--such as whether witnesses should be called--or when they deliberate in seeking to reach a verdict. Otherwise, by the rules of 1868, the senators must sit in silence as House prosecutors present the case against Clinton and White House lawyers defend him. Any questions the senators have must be submitted in writing to the chief justice, who may or may not choose to ask them.

The precedents embedded in the Johnson trial rules should not be put aside lightly. Without them the Senate could find itself mired in prolonged and divisive arguments over how to proceed. But no precedent is sacred. Times change and rules must change with them. Congress has many times discarded procedures and traditions that came to be seen as inimical to the need for free discussion in an open society. For example, as Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) note, in the earliest days of the republic all of Congress’ proceedings were secret. Until 1929 nomination hearings were conducted behind closed doors. Until 1975 many committee sessions similarly took place outside public scrutiny.

The Senate of Andrew Johnson’s day was a far different place from the Senate of today. Its members were not chosen by the electorate--that did not come until 1913--but rather were appointed by state legislatures and so were not directly answerable to the popular will. And much of the Senate’s business was routinely conducted in secret.

Today, except when matters of national security are being discussed, Congress’ sessions are open--in the sunshine, as they say in the Capitol. If ever there was an occasion when the sun should be allowed fully to shine in, it is in the Clinton impeachment trial.

A two-thirds vote is needed to change Senate rules. Harkin and Wellstone, the major proponents of full openness, know the difficulty of getting 65 colleagues to agree with them. But they are leading a fair and just cause. Put simply, Americans have a right to witness this process in all its facets. The people’s representatives in the Senate now have the responsibility to assure that right.