Graduation Year
2023
Date of Submission
12-2022
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Government
Reader 1
John J. Pitney, Jr.
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
This thesis analyzes the ten House Republicans who supported President Trump’s impeachment following the January Sixth insurrection. The thesis contextualizes President Trump’s impeachment with the more recent impeachment proceedings against Presidents Nixon and Clinton. The thesis then analyzes the quantitative variables that could explain the ten House Republicans who supported impeachment, including their wealth, how conservative or moderate they were in the 117th Congress, and the type of primary election in their state, and finds there are no real quantitative differences between the ten House Republicans who supported impeachment and the rest of the House Republican Conference. The thesis then analyzes the way that the ten House Republicans who supported impeachment explained their votes and finds a few common themes, including a recognition of January Sixth’s threat to America’s constitutional republic and a lack of care for the partisan or electoral implications of supporting impeachment. Finally, the thesis concludes by discussing how President Trump’s impeachment shows the potential pitfalls of America’s constitutional system being designed upon Madison’s idea of ambition counteracting ambition and how America’s political culture might have lost some of the character and virtues that Madison believed were necessary for America’s republican government to effectively govern.
Recommended Citation
Bessey, Marshall, "The Impeachment Ten: What Explains the Ten House Republicans who took the Courageous Vote to Impeach President Trump" (2023). CMC Senior Theses. 3210.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3210
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
