At the start of each day of the impeachment trial, the Senate sergeant-at-arms points a moderately stern warning: “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Al
At the start of each day of the impeachment trial, the Senate sergeant-at-arms points a moderately stern warning: “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All individuals are commanded to maintain silence, on ache of imprisonment.”
Due to guidelines which have ruled the higher chamber because the 1800s, senators are required to remain silent all through the trial whereas they serve out their position as jurors. In contrast to Senate hearings, which have lengthy provided alternatives to spin up viral moments, the impeachment trial received’t precisely present this platform.
This explicit precedent was first established throughout Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial in 1868, and is certainly one of a number of procedural quirks lawmakers should adhere to whereas proceedings are underway. Along with abiding by the ban on chatter, senators should additionally depart their cellphones — and occasional — exterior the chamber. These guidelines, a few of that are odder than others, are broadly meant to maintain lawmakers’ give attention to the trial, to allow them to dedicate their full power to serving as jurors.
Attributable to these constraints, senators will spend hours seated at particular person wood desks listening to the Home impeachment managers and the president’s protection current their circumstances, with pen and paper as their sole distraction.
In fact, sure Senate leaders will nonetheless be capable to communicate whereas making motions throughout the trial. Others may step exterior the chamber and supply as many feedback to the press as they’d like. (Each Republicans and Democrats have seized on this latter outlet, holding press conferences often because the trial progresses.)
The foundations about gabbing throughout the trial, whereas severe, are additionally considerably of an empty menace. As Roll Call’s Katherine Tully-McManus writes, no senator has ever been imprisoned for disruptive habits, although some have been rebuked. At most, a senator would doubtless be admonished by the chief justice in the event that they had been behaving in a approach that violated decorum (very like Justice John Roberts did to the prosecutorial and defense teams early Wednesday morning). And although witnesses and reporters have been “jailed” up to now by the sergeant-at-arms, the penalties should not as dire as they sound:
Regardless of persistent rumors, there isn’t any Senate jail. In contempt of Congress circumstances, the Senate has often used the sergeant-at-arms’ workplace, committee area or perhaps a native resort room for short-term “imprisonment.”
This side of the Senate trial is dangerous information for 2020 candidates
Whereas all senators are restricted by these longstanding guidelines, they pose a particular problem to a number of 2020 Democratic candidates who’re caught in Washington whereas the trial is going down.
For Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet, not solely does the timing of the trial imply they’re lacking out on essential marketing campaign time, it additionally doesn’t present an enormous alternative for them to generate notable moments. As Ella Nilsen and I reported, these lawmakers plan to make up for this limitation by having surrogates hit the trial of their stead, holding distant occasions and leveraging social media.
All 4 have signaled that they’re dedicated to their constitutional duty, but it surely’s apparent that the trial schedule proves lower than supreme with the Iowa caucuses lower than two weeks away.
“I might moderately be in Iowa immediately. There’s a caucus there in two and a half weeks. I’d moderately be in New Hampshire, and Nevada, and so forth,” Sanders advised reporters final week. “However I swore a constitutional oath as a United States senator to do my job, and I’m right here to do my job.”
The one catch? He received’t be capable to speak a lot whereas doing it.