It was deeply humiliating for House Speaker Mike Johnson last week when he brought to the floor a resolution impeaching Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and promptly lost as the yeas and nays tied at 215 votes. But in a better-late-than-never gesture, Johnson brought impeachment back up on Tuesday night, and this time around it passed 214-213.
Three Republicans (lame ducks Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher, plus Tom McClintock) voted no along with every Democrat present and voting. A key change was that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who missed the first vote while undergoing medical treatment, returned to join the impeachers. Meanwhile, California Democrat Judy Chu came down with COVID and missed the vote. Two Florida members, Democrat Lois Frankel and Republican Brian Mast, were unable to make it to Washington in time thanks to a flight delay, canceling each other’s absences.
So Mayorkas became the first Cabinet member to be impeached since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 (Belknap, a member of Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, was impeached for a financial-impropriety scandal but was acquitted by the Senate).
Unlike Belknap, Mayorkas is not being accused of any sort of personal impropriety. His alleged “high crime and misdemeanor” consists of following Biden administration immigration and migrant policies that Republicans regard as lawless. So in a very real sense, his impeachment is a measure aimed at the president; there probably aren’t enough House votes to pull off a separate Biden impeachment.
Without any question, this impeachment will go no further than a pro forma trial and acquittal in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But it will feed into the GOP’s election-year messaging on border security, which will include references to the “impeached Alejandro Mayorkas” as though he is an indicted criminal like you-know-who.
