The Senate quickly finished with the impeachment articles against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday. The trial ended before it really started because the Democratic majority ignored the Republican’s attempts to make the process last longer.
House Republicans tried to fire Mayorkas on February 13, but they had to try two times because they didn’t get enough votes the first time. The person chosen by Biden got impeached, which hasn’t happened to a Cabinet member in almost 150 years. The upper chamber had less conflict and finished a few hours after starting. They voted mostly along party lines to declare that the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas were unconstitutional. These articles were for not following the law and for breaking public trust. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican who did not vote yes or no on the first article.
The quick Senate trial was the end of a plan by House Republicans to bring attention to the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border before the election. It didn’t work out very well. However, many people thought that the case they wanted to bring to the Senate didn’t have enough strong points. Some also saw it as taking the focus away from other important messages during the election year. The House GOP accuses Mayorkas, the first Latino and immigrant to have the job, of doing serious wrongs, but constitutional experts say there is not enough evidence to support these accusations.
Chuck Schumer, the person in charge of the majority in the Senate, started the meeting by making a deal with Republicans. The deal would have allowed a set amount of time for discussing and voting on trial resolutions and points of order before deciding whether to dismiss the case.
Republican Senator Eric Schmitt from Missouri said he wouldn’t agree to end the impeachment case without a trial, calling it a “unprecedented” step. Many Republicans wanted to make a deal so they could give speeches on the floor criticizing Democrats and the situation at the border. If not for that rule, only people who everyone agrees with could give speeches, which is unlikely because of how important the situation is.
Schumer wanted to stop the first impeachment article because he didn’t think it accused the president of doing something really bad, as the Constitution says it should. After many votes, the Senate voted 51-48 to reject the first article of impeachment, with one person not voting.
After a few more votes, Schumer’s proposal to get rid of the second accusation was also accepted. This means the second accusation of impeachment was stopped by a vote from one party.
The House sent the impeachment charges to the Senate on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the senators were sworn in to be jurors. It is very unlikely that the chamber would vote to find guilty, which would need a two-thirds majority vote – a very difficult thing to achieve.
Democrats are criticizing the impeachment as a political trick. They say that Republicans don’t have a good reason for it and that it’s not right to impeach a Cabinet official just because they disagree on policies.
“We want to solve this problem as quickly as we can,” Schumer said during a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “Impeachment should not be used to solve a disagreement over policies. ”
He said, “That’s a really bad example. ” This would be a bad example for Congress to follow. Whenever the House agrees on a new policy, they send it to the Senate and force them to do an impeachment trial. This is ridiculous. That’s not fair. “That is even more disorder. “