Washington – Every member of the Connecticut delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to block from a vote a resolution to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
Even Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, who said last month the time had come for the House to open an impeachment inquiry, voted to table the resolution.
The vote to derail the resolution was 332-95. All opposed to tabling the resolution were Democrats. No Republican voted to keep it alive.
Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, the sponsor of the resolution, sought to impeach the president over his tweets against four freshman House Democrats, all women of color, and other comments Green and others denounced as racist.
“I think this is an enough-is-enough situation,” Green said.
His failed resolution said Trump is “unfit to represent the American values of decency and morality, respectability and civility, honesty and propriety, reputability and integrity.”
Himes said Green’s impeachment resolution would have ushered in a too-swift process that did not allow for time to sell the public on the case against Trump.
“Weeks ago, I came out in support of beginning an impeachment inquiry to look into possible high crimes and misdemeanors by President Trump,” Himes said. “Today’s impeachment motion by Representative Green would have moved directly to the Senate and skipped the vital step of a House investigation which would bring all of the facts in front of the American people.”
He also said “I believe the public investigation and fact-finding are essential to this process and therefore voted against moving forward without first making the case to the public.”
After the vote, Trump tweeted the “United States House of Representatives has just overwhelmingly voted to kill the Resolution on Impeachment.”
“This is perhaps the most ridiculous and time consuming project I have ever had to work on” the president tweeted. “Impeachment of your President, who has led the Greatest Economic BOOM in the history of our Country, the best job numbers, biggest tax reduction, rebuilt military and much more, is now OVER. This should never be allowed to happen to another President of the United States again!”
It was Green’s third attempt to get a vote on articles of impeachment against Trump. The first two were rejected by even larger margins. The vote on the last one, held on Jan. 19 ,2018, was 355-66.
But this was the first time a Democratic-led House has been confronted with a vote on impeachment, and it comes a week before special counsel Robert Muller is scheduled to testify before two congressional committees.
Although more Democrats support Trump’s impeachment and the movement continues to grow, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi balks at beginning the process since the GOP-led Senate is unlikely to consider any charges the House might send to that chamber. Pelosi believes continued oversight of Trump and his administration is the wiser course.
“We have six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of power, obstruction of power, and the rest, that the president may have engaged in,” Pelosi said Wednesday. “That is the serious path we are on.”
Republicans denounced the impeachment resolution.
“We could have used this floor time to address the humanitarian crisis on the southern border or lower prescription drug prices for American families. Instead, we had to deal with an irresponsible and hostile vote against the president,” said Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. “The widely-bipartisan result of today’s vote proves that even Democrats are coming around to see the absurdity of impeachment.”
This obsession with attacking the President is hindering progress in attending to the business of the people. The House seems to think they were elected to harass the president at every turn; instead of doing the job they were elected to do. This is a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.
You do realize that is the job of the House…ya know, Congressional oversight? The current administration would have you believe that oversight is not needed but that’s not how the original framers of the Constitution intended America’s government to run. America is a Republic, not a Monarchy. Google it, I promise it won’t hurt;)
Congressional Oversight? Of course but this is not their only job. The House has spending bills and wars to get out of and people to help. The recent presidents have all spent countless hours fending off Congressional attacks. This takes away from other urgent matters of business for the country. It is a paralysis and an excuse for not doing their job.
Ok, let’s try again. The House has sent over 100 bills to the Senate and McConnell has refused to put ANY of them up for a vote. How on earth is that the fault of the House? How can anyone expect anything useful accomplished when you have a GOP-controlled Senate that won’t do THEIR job?!? The paralysis lies with the GOP.
No; the paralysis lies with Congress. This is the same game with every Congress. The parties change but they each try to cripple each other. (Voting to invade other countries is the one exception) They’re all the same. I agree with part of your statement but I think blame belongs to all of them
It’s not that the House merely doesn’t want to impeach President Trump but rather it is that they can’t impeach President Trump.
One day after the Mueller hearings both the NYTimes and Washington Post chimed in together demanding “impeachment”. Even the Norwalk Hour joined in the chorus ! Will CT’s Congressmen join the “chorus” and also demand impeachment. Or get on with the business of governing our nation.