The House voted 209-201 Monday night to sideline a resolution introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his disastrous mishandling of the border, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) greases the skids on a funding package that punts a broader border policy battle until the new year.
Greene introduced the privileged resolution Friday, one day after two of her constituents were killed in Texas in a head-on collision with a car driven by a human smuggler evading police.
Privileged resolutions require House floor action within two legislative days after introduction. Rather than voting on the underlying motion, Republican leadership chose to address the resolution through a Democratic motion to refer it to the Homeland Security Committee. Democrats altered their motion before the vote after previously preferring a vote simply to table the resolution.
Greene’s resolution read that Mayorkas had engaged “in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with the laws of the United States,” accusing him of “willful admittance of border crossers, terrorist human traffickers, drugs, and other contraband.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduces a resolution to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in the House of Representatives on Thursday, November 9, 2023. (screenshot/@RepMTG, X/Twitter)
Speaker Johnson’s decision to table the resolution was a clear signal that it lacked the votes necessary for passage. Some Republicans had been hesitant to step away from sacred “regular order.”
Greene and others argued that Mayorkas’s dereliction at the border has been made abundantly apparent through numerous committee hearings throughout the year, negating the need to waste time with formalities.
Johnson’s decision to accede to Democrats’ demands to toss Mayorkas’s impeachment into a committee recycling bin comes the same afternoon as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced support for Johnson’s continuing resolution (CR) government funding plan.
The Johnson CR postpones a fight on President Joe Biden’s border policy until next year, with DHS funding extended through February 2.
Newly-elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has led Republican opposition to the CR plan, arguing the fight on the border cannot be delayed any longer. Roy was one of the most vocal opponents of December’s lame duck omnibus that set current spending levels and policies as well as September’s CR that extended omnibus spending through Friday, November 17.
“I’d be happy to be here on Thanksgiving Day in order to fight to secure the border of the United States,” Roy said Monday.
Regardless of Roy’s enthusiasm, both chambers of Congress are poised to recess by Friday for a Thanksgiving break while the border crisis overseen by Mayorkas continues.
Follow Bradley Jaye on Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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