Losing the Vote

I thought I’d write today about a very bad vote for Republicans yesterday.  Perhaps surprisingly it is not the Appeals Court that voted unanimously to turn down Trump’s full immunity request.  Which shows you how bad yesterday was for the GOP.  After all, that rejection was truly awful for Trump.  And the rebuke was scathing. 

(Almost most scathing of all, I thought -- although it had nothing to do with the legal part of the decision, but rather the emotional part for Trump -- is that in its ruling the Appeals Court referred to him as “citizen Trump.”  I am sure that was very intentional, because he’s been asking his various court appearance to call him “President Trump.”  Though there was a slight legal aspect to them writing that – to make the point clearly that he was not, in fact, still the president, and wasn’t entitled to presidential protections.)

But for me, though this Appeals Court reject was a significantly more important event than the other, it was to be expected.  It was just hard to imagine – bordering on the improbably – to think that the court would rule that any president had total immunity.  That he could order the murder of a political opponent and have that be legal, as Trump’s lawyers had argued.  Or as one of the judges noted at the hearing, it was too contradictory that a president who swore an oath to ensure that the laws of the land were faithfully executed was allowed to himself break those very laws.

Instead, for me, the vote that stood out most was the one by House Republicans to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.  The last time a cabinet member was impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.  Actually, that was not only the last time a cabinet member had been impeached, but the only time.  And it pertained to an illegal kickback for setting up a civilian trading post on a military outpost.  In the case of Secretary Mayorkas, the issue was…well, basically, Republicans didn’t like how he was doing his job.

Of course, if that was grounds for impeachment, the entire Republican body in the current House, which has passed fewer bills than almost any other in history, would be impeached.  (By way of comparison, the previous Congress passed 362 bills.  The current one, under GOP “leadership” passed 34.  And this doesn’t include their debacles just trying to decide on a leader.)

When Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, she famously would not bring a bill to the floor unless she was absolutely certain it would be.  With Mike Johnson, it appears that the standard is bring a bill to the floor if the Chaos Caucus wing demands it.

One would think that, if your party was going to bring a vote to the House floor to decide whether or not to impeach only the second cabinet member in U.S. history, you would make incredibly sure you had the votes.  Or else risk monumentally embarrassing failure.

Republicans did not have the votes.

Four Republicans – either because they were in purple districts and wanted to save their jobs, or because they weren’t totally insane – joined every Democrat, and the impeachment vote was defeated 216-214.

Disturbing is that 212 House Republicans voted to impeach a cabinet member for not reason other than they didn’t like how he did his job and wanted to score a political point.  But problematic for them is that they showed the American public once again how incompetent they are and unable to govern.  Even when trying to do something unwarranted and reprehensible.

The good news, though, is that Republicans didn’t claim the defeated impeachment vote was rigged, or that they really won and so that means Mayorkas is impeached, which seems to be Standard Operating Procedure for the G.O.P these days. 

Though, in fairness, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) did complain afterwards that "Democrats hid one of their members, waiting to the last minute watching to see our vote, trying to throw us off on the numbers..."

If this was even true, it was a successful, crafty move, one never before used in the history of counting votes anywhere in the world.  Or at least since the invention of the game Hide-and-Seek.  

Yes, that was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is nowadays one of the leading voices in the GOP -- a party that wants voters to let them lead the country.

Oh, and unfortunately, of course, given the source, no, it wasn't even true.  That "hidden" Congressman was Al Green who had been home, recovering from surgery, and he took an Uber to make it to the House because, as he explained to Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (who told him to stay home since his health was more important), that his vote was needed.

And though Republicans didn't claim the vote was rigged, they are likely to do their own version of rigging, since Republicans seem likely to try to have another impeachment vote of Secretary Mayorkas when one of their members, Steve Scalise returns.  (That's certainly allowed, though not only wildly uncommon, and why they didn't wait is anybody's guess -- especially since he, of all people, is the Republican's House Majority Leader! -- but that seems par for the course with the House GOP.  After all, if it took them 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy their leader.  Before soon after kicking him out.) And so it's possible they'll succeed the second time, when they have their "do-over."   If that happens, and who knows at the moment, it will never pass the Senate, of course, so this is all just an exercise in petulance and political improv theater.

Worth noting, as well, is that this rejection of their vote to impeach Secretary Mayorkas was followed later in the same day by Republicans losing yet another vote, this one a $17.6 billion aid bill to Israel with too few security protections.

No word from Ms. Greene if Democrats hid any member on that vote to throw Republicans off.

Or if they want another do-over.