This afternoon Dennis Kucinich took to the House floor to press his case for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. A little while later, and as expected, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer moved to table the resolution without a debate. At 2:53 (according to C-SPAN) the House began a 15 minute vote on whether to table. It seemed that a decisive majority of Republicans and Democrats would vote to kill the resolution until, at the last minute, Republicans began to switch votes against tabling it. That is, they voted to give Kucinich the chance to make his case. Now, more than an hour later, Democrats have just closed the vote–with the House voting against tabling the measure. Stay tuned for more updates. And check out Michelle Malkin (who is live-blogging the travesty) and Hot Air, as well. Michelle says:
Michelle, I’m pretty sure you’ve hit the nail on the head.4:15 Update: The House is in a procedural vote on whether to vote on sending the bill to Judiciary Committee. (This is an alternate method to kill the bill, effectively.) The staff of Republican Whip Roy Blunt E-mails:
4:23 Update: The House begins a 5-minute vote on whether to send Kucinich’s impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee. The bill won’t be acted upon, so this is another way to kill it. 4:31 Update: Looks like the Democrats successfully regrouped after that first vote surprised them. The House just voted 218-194 to send Kucinich’s impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee. This effectively kills the bill, preventing a debate on impeachment. It’s interesting that on such a weighty question as impeaching the vice president of the United States, votes can change so quickly. While the roll calls are not yet available, it seems there were plenty of Democrats who voted to go forward with impeachment when they thought it would fail, who suddenly voted against impeachment when it mattered. I guess it was all just about politics after all — even for the supposed ‘true believers.’ I note that Michelle has posted an excerpt from USA Today’s On Deadline blog on this debate. USA Today says that the impeachment resolution is ‘at least technically alive.’ To be precise, it is as much alive as any other bill or resolution in any other committee. The committee can hold hearings, vote on it, discuss it — or ignore it. In this case, it won’t get any more attention than Mr. Kucinich’s previous resolution on impeachment. So Speaker Pelosi and the House leadership have been as good as their word — impeachment is ‘off the table.’ Update: The roll call votes have now been posted. This is the motion to table — which failed. And this is the motion to recommit the bill to committee — which passed. There were 81 Democrats who voted to have an impeachment debate when they were pretty sure it would be tabled, then turned around and voted to prevent a debate when it was clear one might occur. Those opportunists are: Neil Abercrombie Tom Allen Joe Baca Tammy Baldwin Bruce Braley Lois Capps Mike Capuano Yvette Clarke Bill Clay Emanuel Cleaver Steve Cohen John Conyers Joe Crowley Elijah Cummings Danny Davis Pete DeFazio Norm Dicks Lloyd Doggett Mike Doyle Keith Ellison Sam Farr Al Green Gene Green Raul Grijalva Luis Gutierrez Phil Hare Maurice Hinchey Mazie Hirono Paul Hodes Rush Holt Mike Honda Darlene Hooley Jay Inslee Jesse Jackson Sheila Jackson-Lee Hank Johnson Stephanie Tubbs Jones Paul Kanjorski Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick Barbara Lee John Lewis Dave Loebsack Carolyn Maloney Betty McCollum Jim McDermott Greg Meeks Mike Michaud Brad Miller Gwen Moore Jim Moran Grace Napolitano Solomon Ortiz Mike Pallone Bill Pascrell Ed Perlmutter David Price Charlie Rangel Laura Richardson Lucille Roybal-Allard Bobby Rush Jan Schakowsky Bobby Scott Jose Serrano Carol Shea-Porter Brad Sherman Louise Slaughter Hilda Solis Pete Stark Bart Stupak Betty Sutton Mike Thompson John Tierney Ed Towns Nydia Velázquez Mel Watt Anthony Weiner Peter Welch Bob Wexler Lynn Woolsey David Wu Albert Wynn
