Election Interference
“The beating heart of the Framers’ project was a commitment to popular sovereignty. At a time when ‘democratic self-government existed almost nowhere on earth,’ the Framers imagined a society ‘where the true principles of representation are understood and practised, and where all authority flows from, and returns at stated periods to, the people.’
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“That would be possible only if ‘those entrusted with [power] should be kept in dependence on the people.’ This is why the President, and Members of Congress, must stand before the public for re-election on fixed terms. It is through free and fair elections that the American people protect their right to self-government, a right unforgivably denied to many as the Constitution was ratified in 1788 but now extended to all American citizens over the age of 18.
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“When the President concludes that elections threaten his continued grasp on power, and therefore seeks to corrupt or interfere with them, he denises the very premise of our constitutional system. The American people choose their leaders; a President who wields power to destroy opponents or manipulate elections is a President who rejects democracy itself.” —The Majority Staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary; Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment, p. 27
Celia Jacobs
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