Republican Defections Thwart House Vote to Impeach Mayorkas

In a dramatic setback, House Republicans failed Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, forced to shelve a high-profile priority — for now — after a few GOP lawmakers refused to go along with the party’s plan.

The stunning roll call fell just a few votes short of impeaching Mayorkas, stalling the Republicans’ drive to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S-Mexico border. With Democrats united against the charges, the Republicans needed almost every vote from their slim majority to approve the articles of impeachment.

The House is likely to revisit plans to impeach Mayorkas, but next steps are highly uncertain.

Two Republicans, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), had already expressed their decision to vote against impeachment, but then a third House GOP lawmaker, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), also voted against impeachment, as did Democrat Rep. Al Green  of Texas. At that point, the vice chair of the GOP conference Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) flipped his vote to “no” seconds before the vote closed, a procedural move that allows the conference to bring the legislation back to the floor at a later date.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who could lose only a few Republicans from his slim majority, said he personally spoke to the GOP holdouts acknowledging the “heavy, heavy” vote as he sought their support.

“It’s an extreme measure,” said Johnson, R-La. “But extreme times call for extreme measures.”

Not since 1876 has a Cabinet secretary faced impeachment charges and it’s the first time a sitting secretary is being impeached — 148 years ago, Secretary of War William Belknap resigned just before the vote.

The impeachment charges against Mayorkas come as border security is fast becoming a top political issue in the 2024 election, a particularly potent line of attack being leveled at President Joe Biden by Republicans, led by the party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination, Donald Trump.

Record numbers of people have been arriving at the southern border claiming asylum and being conditionally released into the U.S., arriving in cities that are underequipped to provide housing and other aid while they await judicial proceedings which can take years to determine whether they may remain.

Even if Republicans are able to eventually impeach Mayorkas, he is not expected to be convicted in a Senate trial, where Democrats have a slim majority, and could simply refer the matter to a committee for its own investigation, delaying immediate action.

The Committee on Homeland Security under Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., had been investigating the secretary for much of the past year, including probing the flow of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. But a resolution from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, pushed it to the fore. The panel swiftly held a pair of hearings in January before announcing the two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.

Unlike other moments in impeachment history, the arguments played out to an almost empty chamber, without the fervor or solemnity of past proceedings.

Greene, who was named to be one of the impeachment managers for the Senate trial, rose to blame Mayorkas for the “invasion” of migrants coming to the U.S.

Republican Rep. Eli Crane if Arizona said Mayorkas had committed a “dereliction of duty.”

A former federal prosecutor, the secretary never testified on his own behalf, but submitted a rare letter to the panel defending his work.

Tuesday’s vote arrives at a politically odd juncture for Mayorkas, who has been shuttling to the Senate to negotiate a bipartisan border security package. But that legislation is heading toward instant defeat in a Wednesday test vote. Trump sharply criticized the bipartisan effort, other Republicans are panning it and Speaker Johnson says it’s “dead on arrival.”

With reporting by wire services.