Senate Republicans are urging Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to step up and take the lead on impeachment proceedings for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas was impeached by the House last week, setting the secretary up for a possible trial in the Senate that will most likely place him right back in his position, given the Democratic majority. Still, Republican senators are taking this as an opportunity to spotlight what they believe is a lack of attentiveness when it comes to border security, urging GOP leadership to push for a full trial and pushing for Harris to serve as presiding officer.
The secretary became the first Cabinet member in nearly 150 years to be impeached after House Republicans led the charge to remove him following several investigative hearings on the secretary and his handling of border security. Senate Democrats could opt to push for a motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment altogether, but doing so would require support from centrist Democrats who may want to see the trial play through.
GOP senators are taking a similar approach. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) sent a letter to Harris on Tuesday calling on her to preside over the impeachment trial for Mayorkas.
Though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA) will serve as presiding officer, “I write to encourage and invite you to fulfill your constitutional duty to serve as the presiding officer of Secretary Mayorkas’ impeachment trial,” Scott said.
He said Harris’s appearance at the trial is necessary considering Biden “appointed you as the ‘border czar’ in 2021,” tasking her with “stemming the migration to our southern border.”
“In accepting that appointment, you acknowledged a need ‘to deal with the root causes’ of the flows of illegal immigration across our southern border,” Scott wrote. “As such, you should be keenly interested in learning whether a high-ranking member of your administration is one of those ‘root causes’ through his willful and persistent refusal to enforce our country’s immigration laws, frustrating the very core function of your role as President Biden’s ‘border czar.’”
Other senators are pushing their own members to take the role of a Senate impeachment proceeding seriously. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Sunday that his GOP colleagues would do well to demonstrate “some backbone” and push for a trial against Mayorkas.
“And I got to say, look, if Republican leadership in the Senate doesn’t like the criticism, here’s an opportunity to demonstrate some backbone,” he said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They could stand up and say, let’s have a trial. They can stand up and say, you cannot refuse to even follow the constitutional process for impeachment. You can’t dodge responsibility.”
Cruz also slammed Schumer over the possibility of dismissing the articles of impeachment, arguing that in “over 200 years of our nation’s history, the Senate has never once tabled articles of impeachment.”
“I got to tell you, with the Mayorkas impeachment, you know what Schumer wants to do? He doesn’t even want to have a trial,” Cruz said. “He doesn’t even want to have senators vote on guilty or not guilty. What he’s trying to do is simply table it, just put it aside.”
There are two other avenues Schumer and Senate Democrats could take regarding the impeachment process other than an outright motion to dismiss. The impeachment articles could be referred to a special committee to avoid a difficult vote, but it would likely delay its findings for months — possibly until after Election Day this November, as it takes work and time to form a committee. This option would likely lose the support of centrist Democrats.
The other option would be to raise a point of order, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) did during former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Given his efforts were quashed during a Senate vote, this option is the least likely to be considered.
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Schumer said in a statement that the House impeachment managers will present the impeachment articles next week following the state work period, or recess. The first day of session is Feb. 26. When the Senate is acting as a court of impeachment, the chamber cannot take up legislative or executive business.
Impeachment requires a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate to convict, and there is no appeal. Removal from office would follow immediately from a conviction, so there would not be a separate vote to remove Mayorkas from office if the Senate convicts him on the impeachment articles.
