Yesterday In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. Representatives voted on impeachment

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed on impeach­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s his­toric House floor ses­sion, which end­ed at 5:53 PM Pacif­ic Time on Wednes­day, Decem­ber 18th, 2019.

In the United States House of Representatives

THE IMPEACHMENT OF DONALD JOHN TRUMP

ARTICLE I — ABUSE OF POWER: Vot­ing 230 for and 197 against, the House adopt­ed the first of two arti­cles of impeach­ment against Don­ald Trump.

The arti­cle declares Trump abused the pow­ers of the pres­i­den­cy when he and his admin­is­tra­tion with­held mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and dan­gled the prospect of a White House vis­it by Ukraine’s pres­i­dent in order to pres­sure Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment to announce inves­ti­ga­tions relat­ed to for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joseph R. Biden Jr. and sup­posed (but nonex­is­tent) Ukran­ian involve­ment in the breach of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s com­put­er sys­tems dur­ing the 2016 fed­er­al elections.

Biden is seek­ing the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nomination.

The arti­cle was sup­port­ed by 229 of the 231 Democ­rats who vot­ed and opposed by all 195 Repub­li­cans who vot­ed. Michi­gan inde­pen­dent Justin Amash vot­ed yes. The Democ­rats break­ing par­ty lines were Jeff Van Drew of New Jer­sey (who has defect­ed to Kevin McCarthy’s cau­cus) and Collin Peter­son of Minnesota.

Tul­si Gab­bard, D‑Hawaii, was present for the roll call but answered “Present” instead of tak­ing a pro-or-con stand. She has called for Trump to be censured.

The mem­bers not vot­ing were Demo­c­rat Jose Ser­ra­no of New York and Repub­li­cans Dun­can Hunter of Cal­i­for­nia and John Shimkus of Illinois.

The twelfth para­graph of the thir­teen para­graph arti­cle says Trump “abused the pow­ers of the pres­i­den­cy by ignor­ing and injur­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty and oth­er vital nation­al inter­ests to obtain an improp­er per­son­al polit­i­cal ben­e­fit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abus­ing his high office to enlist a for­eign pow­er in cor­rupt­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic elections.”

Justin Amash, I‑Michigan, said: “Pres­i­dent Trump abused and vio­lat­ed the pub­lic trust by using his high office to solic­it the aid a for­eign pow­er, not for the ben­e­fit of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca but instead for his per­son­al and polit­i­cal gain. His actions reflect pre­cise­ly the type of con­duct the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion intend­ed to rem­e­dy through the pow­er of impeachment.”

Tom Cole, R‑Oklahoma, said the first arti­cle of impeach­ment is “based on an event that nev­er hap­pened, a pur­port­ed quid pro quo that did not exist. Aid that was alleged­ly with­held that in real­i­ty was nev­er with­held at all. And a nar­ra­tive based on noth­ing more than fantasy.”

A yes vote was to impeach Don­ald Trump for abuse of power.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

ARTICLE II — OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS: Vot­ing 229 for and 198 against, the House adopt­ed the sec­ond of two arti­cles of impeach­ment against Don­ald Trump. The arti­cle charges Trump with inter­fer­ing with the House­’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sanc­tioned impeach­ment process by direct­ing exec­u­tive branch agen­cies and cur­rent and for­mer offi­cials to defy sub­poe­nas for doc­u­ments and testimony.

The arti­cle was sup­port­ed by 228 of the 231 Democ­rats who vot­ed and opposed by all 195 Repub­li­cans who vot­ed. Amash vot­ed yes. The Democ­rats break­ing par­ty lines were Van Drew (who, as men­tioned, is in the process of join­ing Kevin McCarthy’s cau­cus), Peter­son and Jared Gold­en, D‑Maine. Gab­bard answered “present” and Ser­ra­no, Hunter and Shimkus were absent from the roll call.

The ninth para­graph of the eleven para­graph arti­cle states that Trump “sought to arro­gate to him­self the right to deter­mine the pro­pri­ety, scope and nature of an impeach­ment inquiry into his own con­duct. This abuse of office served to cov­er up the Pres­i­den­t’s own repeat­ed mis­con­duct and to seize and con­trol the pow­er of impeach­ment — and thus to nul­li­fy a vital con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guard vest­ed sole­ly in the House of Representatives.”

Jer­rold Nadler, D‑N.Y., said: “With­in our sys­tem of checks and bal­ances, the pres­i­dent may not decide for him­self what con­sti­tutes a valid impeach­ment inquiry, nor may he ignore law­ful sub­poe­nas or direct oth­ers to do so. Many pres­i­dents have assert­ed priv­i­lege, but only Pres­i­dent Trump has ordered the cat­e­gor­i­cal defi­ance of a con­gres­sion­al investigation.”

Tom McClin­tock, R‑California, called the obstruc­tion arti­cle “a made-up crime.” “The pres­i­dent sought to defend his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and those of his office. It removes the judi­cia­ry from our Con­sti­tu­tion and places Con­gress alone in the posi­tion of defin­ing its own powers.”

A yes vote was to impeach Don­ald Trump for obstruc­tion of Congress.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

Coming up

This Sun­day morn­ing, at the usu­al time, we will pub­lish the final install­ment of Last Week In Con­gress for 2019, with analy­sis of addi­tion­al votes tak­en this week in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as well as in the Senate.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Votera­ma in Con­gress, a ser­vice of Thomas Vot­ing Reports. All rights are reserved. Repro­duc­tion of this post is not per­mit­ted, not even with attri­bu­tion. Use the per­ma­nent link to this post to share it… thanks!

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