The House will have to deal with — somehow — an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week.
You’ll recall Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a privileged resolution to impeach Mayorkas before the House left Thursday. This means GOP leaders have two legislative days, or until Tuesday, to bring the resolution up for a vote.
It’s unclear what the GOP leadership plans to do here. An earlier effort to impeach President Joe Biden in June was dealt with by referring the resolution to committee. House GOP leaders could move to do the same with the Mayorkas resolution. This is probably an easier vote for Republicans, even the most vulnerable GOP lawmakers.
But we’ve already seen House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican and the most moderate lawmaker in the leadership, come out in support of Mayorkas’ impeachment. This shows what kind of appeal the proposal could have for many Republicans.
However, the language of MTG’s resolution is inflammatory, to say the least. That could make it easier for lawmakers to vote no or even skip the vote. The resolution refers repeatedly to “invasion” and “illegals,” offensive and potentially dangerous rhetoric.
Greene claims that Mayorkas “has violated his oath to uphold this constitutional duty by allowing the invasion of approximately 10,000,000 illegals across our borders.”
More from the resolution:
We checked in with Democrats over the weekend, and they’ll try to first table the resolution, according to multiple sources. Only a handful of Republicans would need to vote with all Democrats to effectively kill the resolution using that maneuver.
Of course, if the House does vote on impeaching Mayorkas, it would be doing so without a vote by the Homeland Security Committee, where Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) is conducting his own probe into Mayorkas.
And it would come during a week that Congress is struggling to keep the federal government open, not to mention while House Republicans’ separate impeachment inquiry into Biden seems to be sputtering.
Republicans will argue they have been making the case that Mayorkas is responsible for the crisis conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border through a series of hearings and reports for months. This has largely taken place under Green’s aegis at the Homeland Security panel.
Green has repeatedly cited Mayorkas “dereliction of duty” at the border, kicking off what was supposed to be a five-phase probe to build support for the impeachment effort. Democrats have dismissed the GOP push, saying Republicans are just desperate to impeach someone — anyone — in the Biden administration.
Of course, the House impeachment effort, even if successful, would fail to win a two-thirds majority in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
No Cabinet official has been impeached since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. Belknap was acquitted.
— Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan
