What is the constitutional process and vote threshold for conviction and removal of a president in a Senate impeachment trial?
Executive summary
The impeachment-as-a-political-remedy">Constitution vests the House of Representatives with the sole power to impeach and the Senate with the sole power to try impeachments; conviction in the Senate requires the “concurrence of two thirds of the Members present,” and the immediate consequence of conviction is removal from office with a possible separate vote to disqualify from future office [1] [2]. The Senate’s procedures — oath-taking, the Chief Justice presiding for presidential trials, presentation by House “managers,” and broad Senate discretion over evidence and witnesses — flow from constitutional clauses and centuries of practice and interpretation [3] [4] [5].
1. The constitutional text and the two‑thirds threshold
Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution states that “no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present,” which courts and Senate practice have read to mean the Senate must register guilty votes equal to two‑thirds of those senators in attendance on the final question for any article to result in conviction [3] [2]. In practical arithmetic, if 100 senators are present that translates to 67 votes needed; if fewer senators are present the two‑thirds fraction is applied to that number [2].
2. The Senate acting as a “High Court of Impeachment”: key actors and sequence
After the House adopts articles of impeachment and sends managers to the Senate, the Senate “sits as a High Court of Impeachment” to consider evidence, hear witnesses and vote; for presidential trials the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the trial while House managers act as prosecutors before the body [4] [5]. Senators must be under oath when sitting for purposes of an impeachment trial, and the Senate has wide discretion to set trial rules, hold closed or open sessions for procedural questions, and organize evidentiary stages including the use of impeachment trial committees [3] [2] [6].
3. What conviction does and what follows: removal, disqualification, and no appeal
Constitutionally prescribed penalties are limited: a convicted officer is removed from office; the Senate may then, by separate vote, impose the additional sanction of disqualification from holding future federal office, and there is no statutory appeal of a Senate conviction [1] [4] [2]. Historical practice confirms that removal is automatic upon conviction on an article and that the disqualification question is considered only after conviction [2] [1].
4. Procedural features and contested questions of jurisdiction
While the Constitution supplies core constraints — oath, two‑thirds requirement, Chief Justice presiding for presidents — it leaves much procedural detail to the Senate, which has adopted rules (including lately the use of trial committees) and has variably held closed deliberations or full open votes on final questions [7] [2]. The Senate’s discretion produces recurring legal and political disputes, for example over whether the body has jurisdiction to try a former president; the Senate and commentators have divided on that question in recent practice, with some senators voting to acquit partly on jurisdictional grounds [8].
5. Mechanics of voting and strategic effects
On the final question senators vote “guilty” or “not guilty” on each article separately, and votes of “present” or absence reduce the pool of “members present” used to calculate the two‑thirds threshold, thus strategically affecting the arithmetic needed for conviction [2] [9]. Historically, presidential conviction has fallen short of two‑thirds: Andrew Johnson escaped conviction by one vote in 1868, and in modern times no president has been removed by the Senate — votes have failed to reach the requisite supermajority [5] [10].
Conclusion
Constitutional mandate and Senate practice combine to make conviction and removal of a president a deliberately high bar: two‑thirds of senators present must vote to convict on at least one article after a trial presided over by the Chief Justice and conducted under Senate rules, with automatic removal upon conviction and a possible subsequent Senate vote to bar future officeholding, and with no appeal from that judgment [3] [2] [1].