About Damn Time

The Republicans in the House finally did something right. Alejandro Mayorkas was finally impeached. 

Way back when the House Republicans dumped Kevin McCarthy and finally replaced him with Mike Johnson, I predicted nothing would change. Republicans have too small a majority to get much of anything done. 

Instead of fighting about who would lead the caucus to nowhere legislatively, I argued that the Republicans had one good thing they could do this session: run investigations into the Biden administration and into the abuses of power that are now rampant. 

The Mayorkas impeachment is an example of both the best and the worst aspects of this moment for Republicans. On the one hand, it took two votes to impeach Mayorkas due to the razor-thin majority the Republicans have in the House and the fractious politics of the caucus. On the other hand, Speaker Johnson managed to get something substantive done despite the fact that he has next to no real power right now. 

🚨BREAKING: The House has Voted to IMPEACH DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on two articles: “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust” pic.twitter.com/RysuQYf3i6

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 14, 2024

The impeachment of Mayorkas will of course not lead to his removal, despite the fact that he is so obviously both derelict in his duty and, in my judgment, a perjurer who should be prosecuted for lying to Congress about the security of the border. 

But the impeachment matters nonetheless, and it was important that the Republicans not only pursue it but succeed. There will be a trial in the Senate–or should be. Despite the fact that the Constitution demands that such a trial happen, there is talk of rejiggering the rules to simply dismiss the charges. 

The vote does not remove Mayorkas from office, since impeachment is only the first step in the process of ousting an official from their post. The matter now heads to the Senate, which has the “sole Power” under the Constitution to hold a trial that could lead to conviction and removal from office.

It’s highly unlikely that Mayorkas would be removed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority would be required for conviction. Senators of both parties have criticized the House for holding an impeachment vote in the first place, knowing it will fail in the upper chamber.

Still, exactly how the Senate will proceed remains to be seen. Precedent dictates that the chamber will move quickly to trial, but what that looks like — and what the Constitution demands — has been subject to debate.

“[The Constitution] says that the Senate ‘shall’ have the sole power to hold a trial, but that ‘shall’ is doing a lot of work there and it doesn’t mandate it,” says Casey Burgat, the director of the Legislative Affairs Program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. “And in a lot of people’s eyes, it doesn’t force it.”

The Senate rules suggest that once the chamber receives the articles of impeachment from the House, they must schedule a trial to begin the following day, Burgat explained. But a majority could vote to “reinterpret” the rules, opening up a number of avenues to speed through, delay or dismiss the impeachment outright. 

“Depending on the entrepreneurship of the people there and how much the majority is willing to not do that, they’ve got a lot of options to kind of rejigger the rule,” Burgat said.

The Democrats have been very “entrepreneurial” of late when it comes to following the law. Ask Hunter and Joe Biden about that. 

The task for the Republicans in Congress is to press the case against the Democrats as corrupt and a threat to America, because the Democrats are corrupt and a threat to America. Republicans in Congress are in no position to have much of an impact on policy or even the budget, but they can lay the groundwork for fundamental reforms to occur if and when they regain real power. 

Impeaching Mayorkas was an important move in achieving this, not just because Mayorkas is a lying traitor to our Republic, but because it must be shown to the American people that he is one. He embodies the abuse of power that has characterized the Biden administration, and if the Republicans couldn’t stand up and say so, then there is no point in having a single one of them in office. 

Sometimes, symbolic victories are the only kind of victories you can get. But they are not worthless, as symbols are one of the key tools in political persuasion. 

Is it enough? Obviously not. But it was the best we could get, and thank God we did. Finally. 

About damn time.