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CNN Poll: 33 Percent of Americans Want Obama Impeached
Friday, July 25, 2014 07:00 AM
By: Drew MacKenzie
One in every three Americans agree with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s call for President Barack Obama to be impeached, a new survey shows.
The CNN/ORC International poll released Friday also reveals that close to one in two Americans think Obama has excessively expanded the powers of the presidency, CNN reported.
However, Americans say that Republicans, led by House Speaker John Boehner, should not sue the president for changing an Obamacare mandate without going to Congress first.
In the poll, 33 percent of Americans say Obama should be impeached and removed from office while 65 percent said that he should not face impeachment.
Palin, the GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee, urged Congress earlier this month to impeach Obama for his "purposeful dereliction of duty" in allowing thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America into the country.
When it comes to party divisions, 57 percent of Republicans think Obama should be impeached while only 13 percent of Democrats feel that way, with 35 percent of independents supporting impeachment.
"Anti-impeachment sentiment is roughly where it was for past presidents – 67 percent opposed Bill Clinton's impeachment in September 1998, and 69 percent opposed impeaching George W. Bush when a few Democrats began talking about it in 2006," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland told the news network. "One reason may be that Americans take impeachment very seriously."
Only two U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, were impeached by the House. Both were acquitted in the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is necessary to convict and remove a president from office. The Senate vote on Johnson was one vote short of conviction.
The poll showed that nearly four out of five Americans, 79 percent, feel that impeachment should only occur if there is evidence that the president has committed a serious crime such as treason and bribery.
But nearly one in five Americans, 18 percent, think a president should be impeached to "express dissatisfaction" with his policies.
The CNN/ORC pool indicates that one in two Americans, 48 percent, think Obama has "gone too far" in using the power of the presidency and executive branch, ignoring Congress. But 34 percent said he had it "about right" while 14 percent felt he has not gone far enough.
Boehner has announced that he plans to sue the president for violating the Constitution by delaying the Obamacare employer mandate without approval from Congress. But, by a margin of 57 percent to 41 percent, Americans do not support such a lawsuit.
This week, the House Rules Committee voted along party lines supporting a resolution authorizing the lawsuit, which is expected to be approved by the House next week.
The poll of 1,012 adults was conducted from July 18 to 20, and has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.
