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The outright dismissal of the charges, without the opportunity to argue their case, was yet another setback for House Republicans, plagued by internal drama and a vanishingly thin majority. “What Senator Schumer is going to do is fatuous, it is fraudulent and it is an insult to the Senate and a disservice to every American citizen,” said John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, at a press conference on Tuesday. “As they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process,” Mayorkas said on Wednesday during an appearance on CBS to discuss a new federal initiative to combat online abuse of children.
Now voting to table motion to call the second impeachment article unconstitutional
The House approved 11 GOP impeachment managers, who will prosecute the case against Mayorkas in the Senate. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he still feels the same as he did earlier today and expects the trial to wrap by midafternoon, otherwise there would be too many points of order. There will only be milk and water allowed in the chamber during the hearing Wednesday, with coffee and other beverages being strictly prohibited. Republicans then put the Senate into a quorum call as they decide what to do. Schumer rejected Cruz's call for a closed session but they're voting on it now. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued that Schumer's point of order is unconstitutonal and said Democrats want the Senate to "vote on political expediency" in order to "avoid listening to arguments."
Scenario: Republicans Take the House and Senate
The House approved a bill requiring states with a history of voting rights discrimination to get approval from the Department of Justice for changes to voting laws. "The dream scenario for the Democrats is that they maintain a majority in the House -- it’s not impossible, it’s unlikely but not impossible -- and they expand their majority in the Senate," he said. Confirming or denying judges is one key role that under the constitution is reserved for the Senate (other key Senate-only roles include conducting impeachment trials and advising and consenting on treaties).
User Clip: Who’s really preventing border security?
Democrats then voted to adjourn the trial, just one day after House Republicans presented the articles to the Senate. Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, moved to dismiss the charges outright, arguing that a cabinet official cannot be removed from office for implementing the policies of the administration he serves. In a pair of party-line votes, Democrats held that two articles alleging Mayorkas willfully refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and breached the public trust with his statements to Congress about the high levels of migration at the US southern border with Mexico were unconstitutional. On the first article, Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, voted “present”. If Democrats are unable to dismiss or table the articles, they could follow the precedent of several impeachment trials for federal judges over the last century and hold a vote to create a trial committee that would investigate the charges. While there is sufficient precedent for this approach, Democrats may prefer to end the process completely, especially in a presidential election year when immigration and border security are top issues.
Alejandro Mayorkas survives House impeachment vote as GOP lawmakers defect - CBS News
Alejandro Mayorkas survives House impeachment vote as GOP lawmakers defect.
Posted: Wed, 07 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
If House Republicans can muster the simple majority of votes they need to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, it will be an unprecedented moment in US history. This is the second attempt by House GOP members to impeach Mayorkas after suffering a massive and public defeat when a similar vote failed last week. The GOP-led House has voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, has said the Senate needs to hold a full trial at which it can examine the evidence against Mayorkas and come to a conclusion. The House has voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.
NOW: House voting on Mayorkas impeachment resolution
And that meant Republican senators could only force votes on procedural questions like adjourning or going into closed session. The impeachment articles charge that Mayorkas “refused to comply with Federal immigration laws” amid a record surge of migrants and that he has “breached the public trust” in his claims to Congress that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure. House Republicans, who advanced the articles in an party-line vote, accuse Mayorkas and the Biden administration of disregarding federal laws on immigration and seek to make Mayorkas the second Cabinet official to be impeached in U.S. history.
Reminder: 45 Senate Republicans voted to dismiss Trump impeachment without trial
Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky is a likely chair for the House Oversight Committee and at the top of his agenda would be the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Comer has said he would probe the younger Biden’s business dealings and look for evidence that he had compromised the president. Biden has said that he has no involvement in his son’s businesses and that his son’s previously disclosed addictions had not caused any conflicts for him. As ballots were being counted on Tuesday night, this seemed like a likely scenario. Democrats face strong headwinds to holding on to the House, from redistricting that favors Republicans to retirements in their ranks.
The balance of power in Congress - and with it the fate of President Joe Biden's White House agenda - was unclear Wednesday morning as ballots are still being counted around the country and several elections remain too close to call. ” the sergeant-at-arms proclaimed, reminding senators that they were to “keep silent on pain of imprisonment” for the duration of the trial. He charged Republicans instead to join Democrats in passing the bipartisan Senate border bill they derailed at Trump’s behest. “The impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors and everything to do with helping Donald Trump on the campaign trail,” Schumer added on Wednesday. In a memo released ahead of the impeachment hearing, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to those talks and contrasted them with the impeachment effort in the House.
Biden would simply appoint another like-minded secretary to head up homeland security. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is facing a tough reelection bid in Ohio, called the impeachment trial a “distraction,” arguing that Republicans should instead support a bipartisan border compromise they scuttled earlier this year. Some Republicans have said they would like time to debate whether Mayorkas should be impeached, even though debate time is usually not included in impeachment proceedings.
At the hearing, Green accused Mayorkas of playing a game of "cat and mouse" with the committee, telling the media he would cooperate by finding a time to testify while refusing to work with committee staff. The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, has criticized the impeachment effort as a "baseless" political attack and Democrats have argued there is no legal basis for impeaching Mayorkas. But first McCarthy, backed by former President Donald Trump, needs to show the Republican majority can keep up with basics of governing. Some Democrats had hoped to expand social services to provide such benefits as universal pre-kindergarten programs, free community college and paid family and medical leave. It replaced the Build Back Better plan that ran up against opposition from Manchin.
A tricky proposition for many Republicans, who have long argued that abortion rights is an issue that should be left to the states, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina proposed national legislation to ban abortions after 15 weeks and proponents could force a debate on the issue. Republicans have introduced resolutions calling for the impeachment of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others. But in October House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy cautioned against using impeachment as a political tool and said he did not believe any Democrats warranted such a step. Republicans have been eager to claw back power in Congress, working to break the Democrats' one-party hold in Washington. All 435 seats in the House and one-third of the Senate were being decided.
"Democrats want to strengthen border security. We want to keep fentanyl off the street. We want to keep communities safe," Thompson said. “He has served as this administration’s chief architect of their open border policies that we know has resulted in drugs pouring across our open borders, killing Americans every single day,” Morgan said of Mayorkas. Mayorkas was the first Cabinet official to be impeached in nearly 150 years.
The House narrowly voted in February to impeach Mayorkas for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. House Republicans charged in two articles of impeachment that Mayorkas has not only refused to enforce existing law but also breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure. It was the first time in nearly 150 years a Cabinet secretary was impeached.
The Biden administration said the Democratic-led Senate made the right call and dismissed Republican efforts to attack Mayorkas unfounded. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he was "deeply disappointed" that the Senate dismissed the charges, saying "there should have been a full trial." In a press conference after the trial, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he felt "very strongly that we had to set a precedent that impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements."
After the jurors are sworn in, Senate Republicans are likely to try to raise a series of objections if Schumer calls a vote to dismiss or table. But ultimately they cannot block a dismissal if majority Democrats have the votes. House impeachment managers previewed some of their arguments at a hearing with Mayorkas on Tuesday morning on President Biden’s budget request for the department. Republicans contend that the Biden administration and Mayorkas either got rid of policies in place under Trump that had controlled migration or enacted policies of their own that encouraged migrants from around the world to come to the U.S. illegally via the southern border.
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