House Fails to Impeach Mayorkas

(UnitedVoice.com) – Republicans have wanted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They finally got their chance on February 6 when Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought the measure to the floor for a vote. However, it didn’t go the way the GOP wanted it to go.

Republicans scheduled the vote for when Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was in the hospital undergoing abdominal surgery. The Democrat offset Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was also absent. The Republican majority leader has been out for weeks after undergoing cancer surgery. When three Republicans — Reps. Tom McClintock (CA), Mike Gallagher (WI), and Ken Buck (CO) — voted against the motion to impeach, Johnson still had enough votes. That changed when Green suddenly showed up on the House floor and voted against impeachment.

A fourth Republican lawmaker, Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), then flipped his vote to no with only seconds to go before the vote closed. That made the final vote 214 to 216, killing the measure. Moore’s vote, however, was strategic. The vice chair of the Republican conference did it because it allows the GOP to bring the motion back to the floor at a later date. That means once Scalise is back, the measure will pass unless Democrats can flip another vote in addition to the three congressmen who already voted no.

Although Republicans have already said they will vote on the measure to impeach again, the defeat was still stunning. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke to reporters outside of Congress and accused Democrats of tricking them. She claimed they “hid one of their members” and waited until the end in an attempt to throw Republicans off.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) stated that it’s not the responsibility of the Democrats to let Republicans know which of their “members will or will not be present on the House floor.”

Jeffries: It’s not our responsibility to let House Republicans know which members will or will not be present on the House Floor pic.twitter.com/sHxwhxe8BY

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 7, 2024