The Denominator of Consensus: Supermajority, Faction, and the Non-Exonerative Logic of Impeachment Failure
The Denominator of Consensus: Supermajority, Faction, and the Non-Exonerative Logic of Impeachment Failure Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™ September 23, 2026 In the architecture of republican constitutionalism, the mechanism of impeachment occupies a liminal space between juridical judgment and political accountability. It is neither pure adjudication nor mere majoritarian will, but a deliberate institutional design intended to mediate the tension between the electoral mandate of the officeholder and the collective capacity of the legislature to interrupt that mandate when the public trust has been breached. Central to this design—particularly in constitutional formulations that fix the threshold of conviction at two-thirds of “all the Members” of the Senate—is a structural insistence that conviction rest upon the consensus of a supermajority of the entire chamber rather than a supermajority of any transient political faction within it. This formal requirement is not a mere arithm...
