Dem
51
GOP
49
Some House Republicans are just itching to impeach somebody in the administration. They don't really care who. After all, the Democrats impeached their guy twice, so they are entitled to two impeachments. First on the list was Joe Biden, since that is tit-for-tat. The problem there is that some older and wiser Republicans pointed out what happened when they made plans to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998. The plan backfired spectacularly and the usual big win by the opposition party in the midterm elections didn't happen. Instead, the Democrats picked up five House seats—precisely the number they need now to gain the majority. So Plan A went nowhere.
Plan B was to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not stopping people from crossing the border illegally (even though Congress has been unable to get a bill through providing him the funding he would need to beef up border security). Claiming that Mayorkas has committed a high crime or misdemeanor because some Republicans don't like what is going on at the border is stretching it, and other Republicans fear the same kind of blowback that they got in 1998. Anyway, yesterday there was a vote in the House to send the resolution to the Homeland Security Committee, thus preventing a floor vote on it. It passed 209-201. Most likely, the resolution will die in the Committee.
The big loser here is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the Georgia firebrand who forced the vote. All the Democrats present and eight Republicans voted to send the resolution to the Committee and skip the vote for now. Greene was not a happy camper. After the vote, she said: "I cannot believe this, I'm outraged. I can assure you that Republican voters will be extremely angry that they've done this." Sure, a year from now voters in 435 districts will base their votes on an obscure procedural vote in the House a year earlier about impeaching an official most voters have never heard of. She threatened a new motion. Boy is she angry.
If nothing else, it shows that Greene doesn't actually run the House, much as she thinks she does. It is possible that the Committee will recommend that the resolution be approved, but the eight Republicans who didn't like it yesterday probably still won't like it because they are afraid of the blowback as a conviction in the Senate is unthinkable and a trial would give Mayorkas a big platform to make the same case he already made to the House. He told the House that he has 24,000 agents on the border and they are using every method possible, human and electronic, to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. If only Congress would appropriate more money for his department, he could hire even more. So Congress, please get moving here. To the average voter, will such testimony sound like he has committed a high crime or misdemeanor? Eight Republicans don't want to chance it. (V)