This Is Why A Congressman Is Officially Proposing Impeaching President Trump

Brad Sherman has taken a tangible step towards an effort to impeach Donald Trump.

The California democrat has proposed an article of impeachment and circulated it among his colleagues in the House of Representatives, the New York Times reports.

The representative, who is in his 10th term in Congress, cited obstruction of justice as reason to write the article.

The Times quoted the veteran congressman as saying,

The purpose of this article is not to deprive the Republicans of their election victory. In fact, from a purely partisan standpoint, it would install someone who would competently pursue a truly regressive progressive.

Drafting an article of impeachment is the first stage of the long process by which a president can be removed from president.

A representative, or representatives (in this case, just Rep. Sherman), first drafts an article of impeachment, which proposes a charge against the president.

The House Judiciary Committee then votes on whether to bring those charges to a general vote in the House. If there are multiple articles of impeachment, i.e. multiple charges, the House then votes on which of the charges should be brought against the president.

If one of the charges gets a majority-rules vote, the president is then impeached.

The process required for impeachment is worth noting here, too, because it helps explain why Sherman has little to no chance of gaining significant support for his article of impeachment.

The numbers for pro-impeachment politicians are simply not in their favor, because of the amount of congressman required to remove a president.

A majority vote in the House of Representatives to impeach Trump would require 218 members in support of such a measure. Combine that with the fact that there are only 193 Democrats in the House, and you might realize why the idea of pursuing impeachment, in 2017 at least, could end up becoming a wild goose chase.

Still, Sherman has indeed taken a tangible step in his efforts, joining colleagues like Texas representative Al Green, who called for Trump's impeachment on the floor of the Senate.

If more politicians continue to slowly and increasingly consider impeachment, the idea might become more plausible, especially if the make-up of the House is significantly different after the 2018 mid-term elections.