WASHINGTON (AP) - A House vote for impeachment of President Clinton doesn't mean the president will be removed from office. The Constitution gives that decision to the Senate.

There are many questions about how impeachment works:

Question: Is the president removed from office if he is impeached?

Answer: No. The articles of impeachment are only charges, similar to a grand jury indictment. The Senate is to conduct a trial on any impeachment articles passed by the House, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding. Two-thirds of the 100 senators must vote ''guilty'' on any or all of the articles for the president to be removed from office. They have a choice of judgments: removal from office, or removal from office plus a prohibition against the president ever holding any future office of ''honor, trust or profit under the United States.''

Question: Can impeachment articles be amended?

Answer: No. They are considered ''privileged'' on the House floor and not subject to either amendment or debate in the Rules Committee like a normal bill.

Question: Is the Senate trial like one in a criminal court?

Answer: In some ways, yes. House Republicans, called ''managers,'' will take the role of prosecutors and - with help from lawyers - lay out their case. Clinton can have his own advocates, probably his familiar team of lawyers. Witnesses can be called to testify and submit to cross-examination. But unlike a criminal court, senators can vote to halt the trial at any point or vote to overrule any of Rehnquist's decisions as presiding officer.

Question: Will the swearing-in of a new Congress in January have any effect?

Answer: Possibly. Although the impeachment charges will carry over to the new 106th Congress in January, the House would have to reappoint its managers for the trial. Because there will be five fewer Republicans in the new Congress, Democrats and a few GOP allies could throw the case into chaos by blocking appointment of the managers. The new Senate's party composition doesn't change: 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats.

Question: Has any president ever been impeached?

Answer: Yes. The House approved 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson in 1868, arising essentially from political divisions over Reconstruction following the Civil War. After a 74-day Senate trial, the Senate acquitted Johnson on three of the articles by a one-vote margin each and decided not to vote on the remaining articles.

Question: Wasn't President Nixon impeached?

Answer: No. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment in July 1974 against Nixon arising from the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building and a subsequent cover-up. Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974, before the full House voted on the articles.

Question: Has Congress ever censured a president?

Answer: Yes. The Senate rebuked President Andrew Jackson in 1834 for vetoing a bill that would have rechartered a central bank. Three years later, Jackson's allies got his record expunged by revoking the resolution, and Jackson's portrait now adorns the $20 bill.