Impeachment – Not just for the President
One of Congress’ ultimate checks against Presidential power is the ability to impeach (or remove) the President from power. The power has been rarely used and has never been successful. Impeachment proceedings have only begun against the President on 4 occasions (two of which were in 2019 and 2021 against President Trump), and in each case the Senate acquitted the President. Impeachment proceedings had begun against Richard Nixon but he resigned as President before he was formally impeached.
However, in February 2024, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives voted to impeach a member of the cabinet, the first such time this has happened in 150 years. The House voted 214-213 to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing that he is responsible for the influx of migrants along the US Mexico border.
There is virtually no chance that the Democrat held Senate will vote to impeach Mayorkas. In fact, the House only voted in favour of impeachment because two Democrats were unable to be present in the chamber to vote against. If the Republican controlled House was divided, then the Democrat controlled Senate will undoubtedly clear Mayorkas.
This begs the questions as to why the Republicans in the House have decided to vote to impeach Mayorkas? Quite simply, the Republicans see this as a way of weaponising the issue of immigration and the Biden administrations inability to prevent an increasing flow of immigrants across the border. As President Biden said, the move was ‘a political stunt’.
As the chart below indicates, immigration along the US-Mexico border has increased considerably during the Biden Presidency and is causing his already stuttering campaign for re-election some major headaches.
In fact, a poll in January 2024 showed that voters favoured Trump to Biden on the issue of immigration with 52% saying that Trump would be better at solving the issue and 30% saying Biden. The Republicans know that immigration is one clear issue on which Trump can beat Biden. The impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas are one way to bring this issue greater headlines.
