Cass R. Sunstein - Impeachment: A Citizens Guide

Praise for Impeachment

With insight, wisdom, affection, and concern, Sunstein has written the story of impeachment every citizen needs to know. This is a remarkable, essential book.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Thoroughly grounded in constitutional history and past practice... Excellent.

Noah Feldman and Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review of Books

Sunsteins goal was to lay out a legal and historical framework for thinking about impeachment, independent of any specific president. Ive been thinking about the topic a lot since finishing the book, and I want to recommend [it].... [Its a] careful history of impeachmentof when the founders believed it was appropriate and necessary.

David Leonhardt, The New York Times

Considering that the only executive branch event more unnerving for voters than impeachment is assassination, Sunsteins book... is a surprisingly cheerful read.

Sarah Vowell, The New York Times

Sunstein has written a concise, enlightening, and argumentative history and guide to getting rid of presidents.... Its more of a why-to and when-to, and a what-were-they-thinking-when-they-decided-to kind of book. Sunstein delves into the writings, speeches, and deliberations of Americas revolutionary generation.

Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post

An elegant new monograph.

Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times Book Review

A lively, compact, and authoritative account... [Sunstein] addresses the most intriguing questions posed by this little used but pivotal constitutional provision.... Truly lives up to its promise of being A Citizens Guide... Excellent.

Stephen Rohde, Los Angeles Review of Books

Explains the historical origins of the impeachment concept, and offers a checklist as to when the principle might be applied... Now, more than ever, cool heads are needed to safeguard the U.S. Republic: thank goodness for this bookand its handy impeachment checklist.

Gillian Tett, Financial Times

Impeachment: A Citizens Guide offers edifying background for an argument that might soon be in need of eloquent, as well as passionate, delivery.

Richard Blaustein, Los Angeles Review of Books

A compact, concise, and highly relevant civics lesson. There have been a number of books published about impeachment, many of them partisan manifestos. What makes Sunsteins book of such great interest is its lack of fanfare and knifesharpening. The author is a learned and accessible guide as he maneuvers his way through the history of democracys nuclear option.... A welcome, timely, ideal primer.

Kirkus Reviews

The book is a tribute to the Founding Fathers wisdom in providing for a remedy in case someone who is vicious, lawless, and unfit should somehow end up in power.

Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed

Sunstein is well positioned to provide this balanced and timely overview of the role of impeachment in American democracy... An essential guide to understanding impeachments function within the constitutional system as a whole and a persuasive argument that the impeachment clause places the fate of the republic in the hands of its citizenry.

Publishers Weekly

This slim book is thoroughly researched, easy to read, and for some perhaps a real eye-opener.

Owen Dawson, The Irish Times

Offers a highly accessible, brilliantly thoughtful, and politically neutral analysis of what the Constitution means for our present moment and for generations that follow.

Ryan Goodman, Just Security

With speculation rife about the possibility of impeaching President Trump, this little book is indeed timely.

Felix M. Larkin, The Irish Catholic

Sunstein provides a brief, readable survey of the issue, beginning with early English history and continuing to the present.... Sunstein concludes with key questions that every American should consider together with the constitutional standards that would govern it.

W. C. Johnson, Choice

PENGUIN BOOKS

IMPEACHMENT

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the most cited law professor in the United States and probably the world. He has served as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and as a member of the Presidents Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Winner of the 2018 Holberg Prize, Sunstein is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a frequent adviser to governments all over the world. His many books include the bestsellers Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler) and The World According to Star Wars.

PENGUIN BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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First published in the United States of America by Harvard University Press 2017

Published, in slightly different form, in Penguin Books 2019

Copyright 2017, 2019 by Cass R. Sunstein

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Published by arrangement with Harvard University Press.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019941900

ISBN 9780143135173 (paperback)

ISBN 9780525506843 (ebook)

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate internet addresses and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover design: Nayon Cho

Version_1

To all those who fought, and fight, for our beloved country, from 1775 to the present

I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checksno form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

JAMES MADISON

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked

BOB DYLAN