House Republicans ramp up calls to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas

Table Of Content

• Hearing on Impeachment Resolution Against Secretary Mayorkas, Part 1
• Democrats Confirm Biden’s Judicial Picks
• House Hearing on Impeachment Resolution Against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Part 1
• House committee holds final Mayorkas impeachment hearing
• Broaden Climate Change Legislation
• Scenario: Republicans Take the House, Democrats Keep the Senate

"No evidence, no procedure. It's not a proud day in the history of the Senate." The proceedings began at 1pm, when Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, administered the oath of office to the Senate president pro tempore Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington. Each senator was sworn in as a juror and signed their name in an oath book. The hearing last week is one of several planned by Republicans along with photo-ops of legislators at the border. If only House Republicans could put this much time and effort into working across the aisle to address the real problems at the border. House in the 2022 elections, we expected they would use their power to push politically motivated investigations.

Hearing on Impeachment Resolution Against Secretary Mayorkas, Part 1

Democrats have repeatedly argued that Republicans are resisting a new border policy that Mayorkas is helping to negotiate between senators and the administration because the bill would give President Joe Biden an advantage in the 2024 election. WASHINGTON — Members of the House Homeland Security Committee voted early Wednesday to advance the Republican-led impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the full House for a vote. But Mayorkas would be the first Cabinet official to be impeached since 1876. Biden promised protecting abortion rights would be his priority if Congress sends him a bill, but Democrats would need to gain enough seats in the Senate to overcome the requirement for 60 votes to pass the legislation. The House has twice voted to expand the rights to an abortion though the medical procedure would be banned earlier than 24 weeks, when the ability of a human fetus to survive outside a woman’s uterus is thought to begin. With control of both the House and Senate, Republicans would have more chance to impede Biden’s initiatives, an appealing move with a presidential election two years off.

Democrats Confirm Biden’s Judicial Picks

The Republican effort to impeach Mayorkas, explained - The Washington Post

The Republican effort to impeach Mayorkas, explained.

Posted: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The Senate is allowed to call witnesses, as well, if it so decides, and it can ask questions of both sides after the opening arguments are finished. Since then, Johnson has delayed sending the articles to the Senate for weeks while both chambers finished work on government funding legislation and took a two-week recess. Johnson had said he would send them to the Senate last week, but he delayed again after Senate Republicans said they wanted more time to prepare. After Tuesday’s ceremonial procession and presentation of the articles, the proceedings will not begin until Wednesday.

House Hearing on Impeachment Resolution Against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Part 1

The possibility of Democrats picking up the swing seat put pressure on Republicans to move quickly with another vote. In a statement, President Biden called the impeachment a "blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games." "Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe." At a trial, senators would be forced to sit in their seats for the duration while the House impeachment managers and lawyers representing Mayorkas make their cases.

House Republicans ramp up calls to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas

"It is now campaign season and Republicans recently rolled out their impeachment proceedings against the secretary like a pre-planned, predetermined political stunt it is," said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the committee. “Now that we have the majority in the House of Representatives, I expect our party to pursue impeachment next Congress,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who is running as a protest challenger to McCarthy for Speaker and introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas last year. The Senate met Wednesday to take up the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.

The absence of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and the surprise attendance by Texas Democrat Al Green, who had just had surgery and was wheeled into the chamber to vote, denied Republicans the votes to pass when it came up previously. If the Senate were to proceed to an impeachment trial, it would be the third in five years. Democrats impeached President Trump twice, once over his dealings with Ukraine and a second time in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Broaden Climate Change Legislation

The Senate is now voting on a motion proposed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., to adjourn until April 30 at noon. After a moment of confusion on the floor, Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked if Kennedy wanted to amend his motion. The Senate is now voting on a motion proposed by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kas., to adjourn for ... While Kennedy was speaking, some Democrats said "close debate," appearing to be annoyed with Republicans' strategy.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes $370 billion for climate change and clean-energy production. Democrats have not campaigned aggressively on what they would do with control of both chambers, but on the successes on the Biden administration, from environmental policies to the infrastructure rebuilding, he said. Republicans could also introduce a resolution banning transgender women from participating in women's sports.

"The Trump administration overcame fierce opposition at every turn and was able to gain control of our southern border as no previous administration could. But all of that progress has been destroyed," Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers decried the impeachment effort, calling it a political exercise with no reasonable basis. Republicans’ top driving argument for impeaching Mayorkas is that he has not kept “operational control” of the border as required by law. After winning the House GOP nomination for Speaker last month over Biggs, McCarthy traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border and called on Mayorkas to resign or face GOP investigations and a possible impeachment inquiry.

But McCarthy himself announced Monday evening's final vote tally on the IRS bill to applause from his side of the aisle. Republicans might try to link inflation to Democratic spending, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and the economy’s over dependence on supply lines out of China. Kosar said he would expect the GOP to propose cuts in government spending, to try to lessen dependence on goods from China and support more drilling for oil and gas in the United States. The importance of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has been sharply in focus with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, rulings on Trump’s many lawsuits and other decisions.

Mayorkas pushed back in a letter to Green early Tuesday, noting that he had testified before the committee seven times and accusing it of ignoring his offer to testify again on another date. Referring to the impeachments of Donald Trump in the last Congress, Green said the committee has been "meticulous" in its methodology. "Today is a grave day. We have not approached this day or this process lightly. Secretary Mayorkas’ actions have forced our hand," he said. "The action under consideration here, impeachment, isn't a tool of policy change," Pearlstein said. "Particularly the impeachment of a single Cabinet official who can be replaced by another official in precisely the same role will have no effect on the heartbreaking problems we have heard described."

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York called the proceedings a “political stunt” ordered up by Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, who pushed the resolution forward. The House impeachment hearings against Mayorkas sprinted ahead in January while the Republicans’ separate impeachment inquiry into Biden over the business dealings over his son Hunter Biden dragged. President Joe Biden, in his own campaign remarks in South Carolina, said if Congress sends him a bill with emergency authority he’ll “shut down the border right now” to get migration under control. The committee Republicans voted in favor, while the Democrats unified against, 18-15. “They know that there’s a bill potentially that would give us new law to help us at the southwestern border. President Trump and many of the House Republicans are fighting to oppose that because they think it would give President Biden some benefit at the elections at the polling places,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md.

The U.S. Senate voted to end the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, a day after House Republicans delivered articles of impeachment against the nation's top border official to the Democratic-led upper chamber. “From his first day in office, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement at the time. Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer started off the trial with a motion to declare the first article of impeachment against Mayorkas — that he "willfully" refused to comply with U.S. immigration laws — unconstitutional.