Impeachment Vote

Today is the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. It will be fascinating to see if any Republicans at all will support impeachment in the House. In an extraordinary display of abdication of any allegiance to the United States constitution, Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham have already indicated that they have no interest in conducting a fair trial in the Senate but will instead take all their cues from the White House.

The damage that the Republicans are doing here to our democracy is hard to overstate. Democracies work through the rule of law and the functioning of institutions. No matter how much you believe that this impeachment should not go to trial, once the House has decided on it, the Senate should live up to the oath of affirmation that the constitution sets out for this occasion (and this occasion only).

So the pre-announcement by Republican leadership that they have no intention of conducting a fair senate trial should further strengthen individual Republican’s to vote their own conscience, instead of blindly following leadership. Here is a beautiful speech from Larry Hogan before the vote on the Nixon impeachment

Sadly I fear that no Republican will find it in themselves to show that level of calm, dispassionate and independent reason.