But the partisanship was there. There was a lot of pressure on the Republicans to resist what was seen as a Democratic effort to overturn the election of Richard Nixon. Rodino tried his best to say: “Let’s proceed with something that’s pretty extraordinary under the Constitution that should only be used only on rare occasions. Let’s do it in a way that’s as nonpartisan as possible.” And he conducted the hearings in that fashion.

But the House historically is a pretty partisan place, always has been. It’s designed to be kind of rough and tumble, because members of the House are closest to the people, so the passions are a little more obvious there. Or at least it used to be that way. The Senate was supposed to be the place of statesmanship. But that kind of division has eroded in recent years.

Between the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973 and Nixon’s resignation the next August, when did you become convinced of the need to impeach?

I had been moving in that direction since early June, but it was an evolution. Rodino sent a letter [in April 1974] to President Nixon requesting the tapes. And Nixon then held a national telecast in the Oval Office in which he stacked up the transcripts behind him and said that’s all we were going to get. Rodino said that’s like if a cop pulls you over and he asks you for your driver’s license and you hand him your credit card. Even the Judiciary Committee Republicans’ own attorney, Albert Jenner, said the transcripts were not acceptable.

That was kind of the beginning. Then the tapes went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Nixon had to release them. And as I listened to the tapes, it became more and more clear to me that Nixon had engaged in a massive cover-up. But I still didn’t make a decision until about two days before we were supposed to go public and debate the articles of impeachment.

I received a call from Tom Railsback, a moderate Republican from Illinois. Tom said: “I’m having a meeting in my office tomorrow morning. I’d like you to come.” I asked who was coming, and he said he had no idea. The people who showed up were Ham Fish Jr., a pretty liberal Republican, and Caldwell Butler, a very strong conservative from Virginia whom I never expected to see at that meeting, and then three Southern Democrats, all from strong Nixon states.

It was the first time any of us had ever met to talk about the articles. The seven of us met that morning, and as we went around, we said abuse of power, obstruction of justice, we can all agree on those things. And if we hang together, we can make sure this passes on a bipartisan basis. And it wasn’t really until that moment that I decided without any reservation I was going to vote for impeachment.