What the House vote on the 25th Amendment says about impeachment

Virtually all Congressional Democrats and even some Republicans have condemned President Trump’s incitement to insurgency on Capitol Hill. Virtually all Congressional Democrats and even some Republicans seem to want Trump to step down as soon as possible. The U.S. House of Representatives seems likely this week to impeach Trump for the second time, with at least five Republicans likely to vote for him. Allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as first reported by The New York Times and then confirmed by ABC News, say McConnell believes Trump has committed impassable offenses and supports Democrats in impeachment .

Where does it all leave us? It is complicated. It still seems fairly likely that Trump will remain in office until January 20, with the House impeaching Trump on a majority vote from the party line, but the Senate will not begin impeachment until January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden will take office. Still, we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out to be sure. Either way, we know that a big step in that process happened on Tuesday night: the House passed a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence and other members of Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. and remove Trump from the presidency.

This vote was historic – the House voted to remove three presidents (including Trump), but never before has formally suggested that the president be impeached by his cabinet. At the same time, the vote has no real impact. Pence said in a letter to Pelosi published before the vote that he and the Cabinet will not try to force Trump out of office via the 25th Amendment. So Tuesday’s vote was really just a prelude to a separate vote on Trump’s impeachment, which could take place as early as Wednesday. House Democrats have vowed they will act to impeach Trump, for the second time, if Cabinet does not remove him.

Tuesday night’s vote on the 25th Amendment resolution, while symbolic, helps us understand some dynamics within both parties – especially when you consider it alongside last week’s votes on the certainty of the November election results. . Here are four things we learned …

Most Republicans in the House still align strongly with Trump.

Only 83 of 204 House Republicans who took part in the vote opposed last week’s effort to effectively disqualify presidential votes in Arizona. Only 64 of 202 House Republicans who participated in the vote opposed the effort to disqualify the election results in Pennsylvania. In other words, a clear majority of House Republicans voted to ban the Arizona and Pennsylvania presidential results, joining Trump’s efforts to disqualify votes from swing states where he narrowly lost. And these were votes held after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

As of Tuesday evening, the number of House Republicans who were ready to call on Trump to be removed from office was even lower – just one, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, backed the resolution calling for Trump’s impeachment. There may be Republicans voting for impeachment, but not the 25th Amendment resolution (more on that below). But it seems likely that the overwhelming majority of Republicans will oppose any effort to remove Trump from office, regardless of the method.

The next impeachment vote will be the fourth vote in the space of a week that is actually a proxy for a House Republican’s loyalty to Trump and strongly pro-Trump voters. And it looks like most Republicans in the House will side with Trump all four times despite an attack on Capitol Hill that was in part inspired by Trump’s words, resulted in the deaths of five people and could easily have resulted in members of Congress and even Pence. kill.

It should be noted that the strong support for Trump among Republicans in the House may not be shared in the Senate. Only eight of 51 Senate Republicans supported efforts to challenge the results in Arizona, Pennsylvania, or both states. Unlike McConnell, the allies of Republican Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, have not suggested that McCarthy is open to Trump’s impeachment. That said, it is not clear that many Republicans in the Senate support the invocation of the 25th Amendment or the attempted impeachment and impeachment of Trump. (More on this topic in a minute).

There was a big difference between asserting Biden’s victory and calling for Trump’s impeachment.

The 63 Republican members of the House who confirmed the election results in both Arizona and Pennsylvania came from across the ideological and geographic spectrum – some were fairly moderate members of more liberal regions, like Rep. John Katko from New York, but some were also conservatives from more right-wing regions, notably the No . 3 Republican leader, Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

But voting to impeach Trump seems like a bridge too far, even for these Republicans. Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Katko and Cheney have indicated that they will support impeachment, although they did not also support the 25th Amendment process like Kinzinger did. But overall, there is no indication that most of those 63 members will vote for impeachment.

Impeachment in the House doesn’t really need Republican votes, as Democrats are in the majority and they are likely to be universally behind impeachment. But this sentiment of the House can also be an indication of things in the Senate …

It is not clear exactly what the Republicans in the Senate will do.

McConnell, while hinting that he is frustrated with Trump, also suggested that the Senate cannot really begin an impeachment trial until Jan. 19, according to a memo he sent to Republican senators and obtained by Washington. Post. If the Senate really wanted to kick Trump out immediately, I think he would find a way to do it. What is more likely is that McConnell wants to send the message publicly that he is personally angry with Trump but not necessarily to force Republican senators to officially vote. Remember, McConnell just won a six-year term in 2020, and he’s 78. He’s probably not that worried about being branded pro-Trump underdog and losing a Republican primary in 2026 if he decides to run for another term at 84. But the young Republican senators, those with presidential ambitions and / or those running for re-election next year may want to avoid a vote to defend Trump or remove him from office.

So it’s not clear that McConnell would be heading for a vote before January 20. There is no clamor yet from GOP Senators urging the Senate to meet immediately after the House impeached Trump, nor is it clear that there are anywhere near the 18 GOP Senators who would be necessary to remove him from office. So, unless something drastically changes, in terms of the posture of GOP senators, Trump will likely stay in office on January 20.

At the end of this month, with a 50-50 Senate and Vice President Kamala Harris as the deciding vote, Democratic Senate Leader Charles Schumer will be the majority leader. There is little precedent for this, but some legal experts say the Senate could, by a two-thirds vote, condemn Trump on impeachment charges, even if he is removed from office. Then, with a simple majority, the Senate could vote to disqualify Trump from holding office again. But I must insist: we do not know if this will happen. With Trump removed from office, would Democrats, especially Biden, be keen to focus on the Democrats’ political agenda, rather than trying to punish Trump? Would Republicans in the Senate agree to attempt to condemn Trump and disqualify him from running again? Would a ban on Trump from holding other office resolve legal challenges?

Democrats blame Trump like no other president has been reprimanded.

All 222 Congressional Democrats who took part in the vote on Tuesday supported invoking the 25th Amendment. Impeachment is also likely to be a unanimous vote among Democrats. This is not surprising – in 2019, all but three of the 232 House Democrats in the House supported Trump’s impeachment for his plan to force the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. There has been some turnover in terms of membership, but the overwhelming majority of House Democrats have tried to force Trump to step down in the past and probably feel comfortable voting again, especially in light of the terrible incident last week at the Capitol.

By combining today’s 25th Amendment resolution with the 2019 impeachment, Democrats ensured that Trump was reprimanded by the House of Representatives in a way no previous president had: both impeached and urged to be removed from office by the president’s office. No president has been impeached in two separate instances (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were indicted on multiple articles, but in the same round of House votes). House Democrats are almost certain to make Trump first this week.