Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is dangerously close to earning the title of serial impeacher, if he hasn’t already. On Thursday, December 11, almost two dozen House Democrats joined the GOP in stopping Rep. Green’s latest Trump impeachment. And they aren’t happy about it.
Weaponized Impeachment
Since July 12, 2017, 19 impeachment resolutions have been introduced in the House against President Donald Trump. Al Green was responsible for seven of them. But while the Texas Democrat may be inexhaustible when it comes to trying to oust Trump, many of his fellow left-wing lawmakers are not.
This most recent resolution – Al Green’s third attempt since May – failed Thursday after 23 of his fellow Democrats voted alongside 214 Republicans to “table” the impeachment, effectively killing it. Another 47 voted “present,” even switching, in many cases, from “yes” right before the vote closed. And if you think just 140 Democrats voting in favor of Trump’s impeachment is a bad look for the party, Green’s last try didn’t even manage 80 “yes” votes.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have both seen impeachment articles filed on them in the last two weeks, and another lawmaker, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), wants to add Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the list.
Disgruntled Democrats
These more recent impeachments, however, are all from a handful of Democrats who have, in a sense, gone rogue. While party leadership and the majority have soured on weaponized impeachment – or, if nothing else, recognize the futility of it in the face of a Republican trifecta of power in DC – Reps. Al Green, Haley Stevens (D-MI), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI) account for all four impeachments against Trump this year, as well as the efforts against Hegseth and Kennedy.
When Thanedar forced a vote on his Trump impeachment back in May, one Democratic Party lawmaker told Axios, “People are pissed.” Another told the outlet: “This is the dumbest f---ing thing. Utterly selfish behavior.” The response wasn’t any friendlier when Stevens went after Kennedy or when Green forced a vote on his own Trump attack.
“We’ve done this impeachment thing a lot and it hasn’t achieved anything,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told the press this week. “It’s purely performative … it makes someone in your base happy, but we need to do real work.”
Real work aside, it also puts the majority of congressional Democrats in a tough position. Should they vote to impeach, they seem petty and performative. Should they vote not to, however, they seem to be siding with Trump. Either way can be costly come election time next year. Rather than hang the Trump impeachment millstone around their necks, most Democrats would prefer to accomplish something legislatively, like squeezing their Republican colleagues for an extension on Obamacare subsidies to keep insurance premiums lower.
Though he and his fellow rogue impeachers are drawing all the wrong kind of attention to congressional Democrats, he refuses to be silenced. In a statement released by Rep. Green’s office Thursday night, the lawmaker tried to spin it as “a powerful message” to President Trump. “He should understand now that targeting people is not only harmful to the people he targets, but also harmful to the continuation of his presidency,” Green continued.
The Lone Star State lawmaker is still fired up, and it’s entirely possible he may file yet again before long. With Republican control of the House, however, no impeachment resolution is likely to get far. No, the most Green and his cohorts can likely accomplish is to destabilize the base ahead of a crucial election through infighting.
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