WASHINGTON — In the feverish debate over how to conduct a Senate impeachment trial, Washington this week has learned a new answer to an old question: What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The answer: chaos.
In this case, the immovable object is the unwavering public resistance to removing President Clinton from office--or even to prolonging the crisis with a full Senate trial. The irresistible force is the staunch support among rank-and-file conservatives for both those actions.
Caught between those irreconcilable pressures, Senate Republicans this week buried a bipartisan plan to avoid a trial with witnesses--but also hesitated about precipitating the open partisan warfare that defined the House handling of impeachment. In political terms, they have struggled to find a formula that can satisfy their conservative base without alienating the swing voters who polls show turned en masse against the House's handling of the Clinton case.
"Everybody wants this done," said a senior aide to one leading conservative Republican senator. "But we have to be so careful of the base; they will be furious if we look like we are rushing through this."
But by holding out for a more expansive, if time-limited, impeachment trial, the GOP appears to be drifting into a situation that once again raises the stakes of their confrontation with Clinton, perhaps to the point where it could risk their hold on the Senate itself.
For the first time in recent years, Republicans in 2000 will be defending more Senate seats (19) than the Democrats (14). Moreover, 13 of the 19 Republicans facing reelection are in states that Clinton carried in 1996--many of them in Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast states where the president is most popular and public opposition to impeachment most intense.
For Democrats, Hope Grows
That alignment has raised Democratic hopes of overcoming the GOP's 55-45 seat advantage in the Senate, particularly if the upper chamber becomes entangled in a polarizing trial over removing the president.
"For Republicans, it is probably more of a risk even than it was in the House," said Stu Rothenberg, whose political newsletter analyzes congressional races. "Voting on whether to remove Clinton is much more of a defining act [than even impeaching him] and is more likely to be in the voters' memories in 2000."
What's become clear over the past week is that even the self-consciously deliberative and dispassionate Senate is subject to the same unruly political, personal and legal pressures that tore apart all efforts to negotiate an end to the impeachment crisis in the House.
All of those forces have been evident in the collapse of the bipartisan plan by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) to preempt a lengthy trial with an expedited procedure that would likely have steered the Senate toward a quick vote on censuring Clinton.
That plan, like the earlier calls for a negotiated solution in the House, ran into intense GOP opposition on several fronts. One was legal: the belief among many Republican senators of all ideological stripes that it was wrong to short-circuit the constitutional process in any way. Just as in the House, those sentiments were reinforced by a widespread disgust among Senate Republicans at Clinton's behavior, not only in the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal but also at many points in his life.
Senate Republicans also have been impelled forward by powerful political considerations. One is the fear that any process that seems to dismiss the charges could help Democrats in 2000 portray House Republicans as extremists for approving the impeachment articles at all, which in turn could help Democratic chances of recapturing the lower chamber. And, again like their House counterparts, GOP senators face a situation in which most of their core supporters continue to back Clinton's removal, even as more than two-thirds of the country continue to oppose it.
Position Worse Than in House
If anything, Senate Republicans begin their struggle with impeachment in an even more difficult position than their House colleagues.
The House action itself has tilted public opinion further away from the GOP. In the wake of the House vote to impeach Clinton last month, the president's approval rating has soared to around 70% in national surveys and public assessments of the Republican Party have plummeted.
At the same time, the public desire for a quick end to the process appears to be deepening: 63% of those surveyed earlier this week by CBS said the Senate should not hold a full trial. Strikingly, even among rank-and-file Republicans, just 52% now support a full Senate trial.
