Over the summer, House Speaker John Boehner called speculation about impeaching President Barack Obama a “scam” cooked up by Democrats. However, various conservative Republicans have raised the prospect too. As Obama prepares to issue an executive order on immigration policy this month, some House Republicans appear ready to push for articles of impeachment.

House leaders may never allow articles of impeachment to come to a vote. In July, they pushed (and House Republicans narrowly approved) a lawsuit against the president instead. That lawsuit has not gotten off the ground, though.

Today Representative Steve King (IA-04) warned of a “constitutional crisis” if the president grants “amnesty” to undocumented immigrants. His full statement is after the jump, along with some thoughts on how King and the rest of Iowa’s Congressional delegation might respond to an impeachment debate.

Avoiding the word “impeachment,” King called on “all of my colleagues in the House to use the power of the purse to protect our Article I authority.” That sounds more like another federal government shutdown, rather than an attempt to indict the president on high crimes and misdemeanors. Then again, in August King suggested impeachment talks would be on the table if Obama took executive action on immigration. I still consider King a likely vote for drafting and passing articles of impeachment if other efforts to block the president’s immigration policy fail. (Scroll to the end of this post to read the full text of King’s statement today.)

Iowa’s newly-elected House Republicans need an impeachment or government shutdown debate like they need a hole in the head. Rod Blum won narrowly in Democratic-leaning IA-01 by making his campaign mostly about his personal attributes: being an adoptive father, a successful business owner and not a “career politician.” His messaging downplayed his policy stances, which are far from moderate. I see Blum as likely to stand with House conservatives in any showdown with the president over immigration policy, even though a vote to impeach or block funding for most federal agencies would not play well in northeast Iowa.

Meanwhile, David Young campaigned as someone who would “hit the ground running” for IA-03 and “be at the table” working toward legislative solutions. I’m sure he would rather not indict the president right off the bat. But voting against criminal charges would anger some loud elements in the Republican base. Young will hope that House leaders can keep a lid on any impeachment debate.

If the House did impeach Obama, there is no chance that two-thirds of U.S. senators would vote to remove him from office. But a trial would be conducted in the upper chamber regardless. Senator Chuck Grassley voted to convict President Bill Clinton in 1999 on both perjury and obstruction of justice charges. He recently tweeted that Obama was “flagrantly violating his oath w threats to do immigration by fiat. He is getting dangerous close to assuming a Nixonian posture.” That suggests to me that Grassley would lean toward voting to convict if the Senate presided over an impeachment trial. Fewer than ten Senate Republicans voted “not guilty” on either of the charges against Clinton.

Senator-elect Joni Ernst has repeatedly said she opposes “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants. I imagine she would prefer her first months in federal office not to be remembered for an impeachment trial. But if push came to shove, I think she would follow Grassley’s lead. (For that matter, I expect Ernst and Grassley to vote the same way at least 99 percent of the time during the next two years.)  

Final note, which may be stating the obvious: Representative Dave Loebsack, who in January will be the only Democrat left in Iowa’s Congressional delegation, supports the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year. He and the rest of the House and Senate Democrats will surely vote against any attempt to block Obama’s order, shut down the government, or impeach the president.

Statement from Representative Steve King, November 13:

King: We are Headed for a Constitutional Crisis if President Grants Amnesty

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Steve King released the following statement in reaction to the leaked amnesty details this morning:

“This President has been floating the trial balloon on executive amnesty for a long time,” said King. “Today, new details surfaced that the President plans to attempt amnesty as early as next Friday, sending us into a Constitutional crisis.  

The President was right when he said on March 28, 2011, ‘with respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.’ And when he said, on May 10, 2011, ‘sometimes when I talk to immigration advocates, they wish I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself.  But that’s not how a democracy works.’ Well, now we know that his belief about ‘how democracy works’ was a ploy. Now he wants to unilaterally rewrite immigration law granting illegal amnesty to millions.

The audacity of this President to think he can completely destroy the Rule of Law with the stroke of a pen is unfathomable to me. It is unconstitutional, it is cynical, and it violates the will of the American people. Our Republic will not stand if we tolerate a President who is set upon the complete destruction of the Rule of Law.

I am calling on all of my colleagues in the House to use the power of the purse to protect our Article I authority. This is about defending our oath to the Constitution too. We cannot allow Barack Obama’s anticipated, unconstitutional act to be implemented, for if it is it will destroy the pillars of American Exceptionalism.  Come what may – we must always protect the Constitution.”