House panel votes to impeach Mayorkas over border
'Squad' member confirms she's under investigation
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for January 31, 2024:
Questions about the future for Sen. Sinema.
New York GOP'ers almost derail House floor work.
Bipartisan tax package slowed by GOP complaints.
IMPEACH. After hours of bitter debate, the House Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines early this morning to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, as Republicans demanded his ouster - angered by surge of migrants across the southern border. "Mayorkas remaining in his position is a threat to national security," said Rep. John Rose (R-TN).
NAME CHECK. Democrats ridiculed the GOP move. "The public wants us to deal with the border, not to impeach Mayorkas," argued Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV). "How many members of the public could even name Mayorkas as the Secretary of Homeland Security?"
POLICY. Tempers flared as the hours went by last night. "You can't lie about the numbers," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) yelled at Democrats across the dais. "The facts are the facts. Secretary Mayorkas is breaking the law."
DEMS. Hour after hour, Democrats pointed out GOP actions at the border that never drew impeachment threats. "In the last two years of the Trump Administration, 52 percent of migrants apprehended at the southern border were released," said Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).
HOUSE VOTE. A vote in the full House on the Mayorkas resolution could be a nail-biter, as there are definitely a couple of Republicans who are on the fence or might not vote to impeach - not yet convinced this is really the best answer to settle this very political border security dispute.
HISTORY. If this effort succeeds in the House, Mayorkas would be just the second Cabinet member to be impeached. The other case from 1867 dealt with financial corruption involving the Secretary of War.
CORI BUSH. A day after a mystery subpoena was revealed to the full House, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) acknowledged that she is under federal investigation over how she used campaign funds to pay for personal security. "I have complied with all applicable laws and House rules," Bush declared in a statement to reporters on the Capitol steps.
SECURITY. At issue is spending for security, which Bush says she needs because of a large number of personal threats. "I have not used any federal tax dollars for personal security services," Bush said in a very specific denial. "Any reporting that I have used funds for personal security is simply false."
STORIES. There have been reports raising questions about Bush's security spending - focused on her husband, who started off as a member of her security detail (they were married in 2023). Bush's campaign doesn't hide the fact that Cortney Merritts is on the payroll, listed both for 'Security Services' and 'Wage Expense.'
STATEMENT. Bush claimed that a review by the Office of Congressional Ethics - an outside group staffed by former members of Congress - had rejected claims of wrongdoing lodged against the Missouri Democrat. It's not clear how far along this federal investigation is, or what has been uncovered.
WEAPONIZE THIS. If you subscribe to the theory that the Justice Department is only going after Republicans and Donald Trump, just remember that the feds are right now investigating Bush (a member of the 'Squad'), prosecuting President Biden's son, and prosecuting Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
BIG TECH. While impeachment, the border, aid to Ukraine and Israel deserve a lot of attention, one hearing today on Capitol Hill might be much more meaningful in the lives of many Americans, as Senators will hear from the CEO's of some of the biggest social media companies, discussing what they've done to keep kids safe online.
HEARING. "The CEO's of Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and X will testify," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I look forward to hearing from these companies about what they're doing to make their platforms inaccessible to child sex offenders."
CONTENT. Another concern for lawmakers is how minors easily come into contact with sexually explicit content. But it is much more difficult to draw up some kind of federal regulations to be applied to social media giants.
TIKTOK. I would be surprised if Senators let the head of TikTok appear at this hearing without asking broader questions. "TikTok has spent $1.5 billion building an operation to convince U.S. lawmakers that the app will no longer send Americans' data to Communist China," said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
MONEY. Sometimes a candidate's lackluster fundraising can indicate their future plans. And that's what immediately came to mind last night when looking at the year end fundraising report for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). She has over $10 million in the bank - but didn't even raise $600,000 in the final quarter of the year.
SIGNATURES. Running as an Independent for U.S. Senate in Arizona requires a candidate to collect just over 42,000 signatures in order to get on the ballot. There were reports last week that Sinema hasn't started doing that work yet. The deadline is April 4.
MINI REBELLION. For about 20 minutes yesterday on the House floor, GOP leaders were facing the possibility of another lost day because of a rebellion from inside Republican ranks. Most of the time, it's the Freedom Caucus fighting with leadership. This time, it was a small band of GOP lawmakers from Long Island.
SALT. Reps. D'Esposito, Lawler, Garbarino, and LaLota had all voted against a procedural rule for a variety of bills on the House floor - unhappy with the lack of action to roll back part of the Trump tax cuts dealing with state and local tax deductions.
TAX ROLLBACK. After keeping the House in limbo for a while, the New Yorkers backed down. While their protest might flare up again, everyone knows that the SALT rollback is unlikely to happen because of the high cost - about $80 billion per year to fully repeal the deduction limits.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) tweeted Happy Birthday wishes to Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday *after* this protest, in what would have been a direct rebuke to Johnson. The idea of going against your leaders like that used to be heresy in the House - now, we call it 'Tuesday.'
TAX BILL. The House will vote today on a $78 billion bipartisan tax package which has drawn opposition from various quarters inside the GOP. A vote was scheduled early this morning after Speaker Johnson had earlier made no commitment on the timing. It will need a two-thirds super majority to pass under ‘suspension of the rules.’
ILLEGALS. Some Republicans continued yesterday to attack the tax plan as a giveaway to illegal immigrants - even though that's repeatedly been shot down by key GOP lawmakers in the House. "Illegal aliens should not be cashing in on child tax credit payments," said Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI).
DETAILS. For someone to qualify for the child tax credit, the child must have a Social Security number - which means they either are already a U.S. citizen, or the family is legally here on a green card. But those kind of 'facts' quickly get lost when people scream something along the lines of 'AMNESTY!'
DEAL. The bill is a classic compromise. Senate Democrats won provisions on the child tax credit. House Republicans won provisions on extending certain business tax breaks. Each side gets something, and it is paid for in the short-term. But this isn’t my father’s Congress.
BROKEN RECORD. It's the same old story from the Senate on the bipartisan border security talks. The final text of the deal still isn't ready - and Senators are still waiting. "We are approaching the finish line but the work is not done," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as the Senate got back to work on Tuesday.
SUPPORT. "There are some politicians who want to postpone solving a crisis until it’s politically convenient for them," said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), one of those involved in the talks. "It’s time for partisans to drop the tired talking points and focus on solutions."
SPEAKER. Over on the House side, we were all busy reading the tea leaves and listening for clues. "Joe Biden and his administration have created a catastrophe on the border," Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. "Everybody knows it."
THE DEAL. Johnson again made clear he's not that open to the Senate border talks. "You know, it's hard to make a judgement about something you haven't seen," the Speaker said, alluding to wait for actual details.
MAILBAG. One question came in this week from a reader about the delayed work on government funding bills for this year. "Is it my imagination or has this U.S. House not entertained any of the Budget Bills that they wanted to handle in regular order?"
REALITY. It is not your imagination. All of the spending work is being done behind closed doors, which is exactly what House Republicans said they would not do. GOP leaders made a big deal out of not having a pre-Christmas Omnibus funding package. Instead, they will have two funding packages in early March.
ALLOCATIONS. How secretive is the current process? Last weekend, there were press reports that a deal had finally been reached on the precise funding allocations for each of the 12 appropriation bills. But there has been no announcement detailing those final numbers.
RAP SHEET. When I watched portions of the Jan. 6 security tapes, I was alarmed to see a guy in an overcoat and tie quickly make it into a little-known area of the Capitol with two other rioters (and later into the Speaker's office suite area). Over three years later, Jonathan Humphreys of San Diego, California has been arrested.
TAPES. As part of the deal on the Jan. 6 tapes, I asked for 20 different snippets of video to be released by the Committee on House Administration - including video of Humphreys. The panel never responded to my requests, and is now slowly (very slowly) releasing video from the Capitol security cameras.
MUSE OF HISTORY. January 31, 1870. Maybe there was an error made by the bill clerk in the House on this date, as we find a bill with a fraction in it - H.R. 1025 1/2. It was introduced on this date by Rep. Martin Welker of Ohio. H.R. 1025 was already taken - as was H.R. 1026. This bill, which established a house of corrections for boys in Washington, D.C., was ultimately signed into law by President Grant. Congressional historians have only found a few examples of such 'fraction' bills.
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House convenes at 10 am.
The Senate meets at 10 am.
Check President Biden’s schedule.
Follow me on Twitter @jamiedupree.
Email me at jamiedupree@substack.com
If you want to say ‘thanks’ - you can buy me a cup of coffee.
So the GOP-led House chooses to spend its time attempting to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and these same folks STILL haven’t passed a budget for a fiscal year that began on Oct. 1? And tomorrow is Feb 1?. It’s more than appropriate that we’re celebrating Groundhog Day this week.
I guess we can only hope that there are a few Republican members who are unwilling to go along with the impeachment charade. You'd think the Speaker would know, for certain, that he had the votes for impeachment in his pocket before allowing it to reach the floor - but House leadership has been so dysfunctional this session that I have to think that might not be the case.
Of course any Republicans voting against impeachment would have to be willing to suffer the anger of much of the rest of the party - and these days that level of vituperation and threats just might be too much to take.