The six senators seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination expected to spend the bulk of January in early nominating states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Instead, the half-dozen lawmakers seeking promotion to Pennsylvania Avenue may be stuck on the Senate floor for an impeachment trial of President Trump. And during the six-day-a-week afternoon sessions, they’ll be rendered mute, per Senate impeachment rules imposed on all 100 members in the chamber.
No Senate trial date is fixed yet. In fact, it’s not certain when, or even if, the Democratic-controlled House will send over impeachment articles to the GOP majority Senate. And if they do, whether the focus and scope will be limited to Trump’s strong-arming of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, or if it will be more expansive to include elements from the Mueller report and other topics.
But with House Democrats eager to move impeachment articles quickly, possibly by the end of the year, it’s a good bet that a Senate trial of Trump could start in early January. It could continue for more than a month, which would bump up against final campaigning, and even voting in the Iowa Caucuses on Monday, Feb. 3, and the New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday, Feb. 11. The Nevada Caucuses follow on Saturday, Feb. 22, with the South Carolina Primary a week later, on Feb. 29.
The dueling schedules would prove a test for how to juggle ambitions for higher office with duties as jurors for the six Democratic senators running for president — Michael Bennet of Colorado, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The candidates have so far been tight-lipped regarding how they will manage their senatorial obligations as the primary season nears. Most — such as Warren, who routinely touts her public policy plans — have simply promised to “be there” in Washington, D.C., six afternoons a week.
“This is a constitutional responsibility. I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. So did everyone in the United States Congress,” Warren said this month in Iowa. “I think it should have happened earlier, but we’re here now. Let’s do it,” she added later in New Hampshire.
Harris, who has similarly vowed to be on Capitol Hill “as long as it takes,” told Showtime’s The Circus this month the process, which will be presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, was “not the first time in my life I’ve had to multitask.” But former President Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999 took roughly six weeks.
“I have an incredible team on the ground in Iowa, and we’re going to have to get creative,” she said of her staff, who have, for example, organized tele-events in the past.
Her bid is one that stands to benefit from a trial, given the two-term California state attorney and former San Francisco district attorney’s push to be seen as the best “prosecutor” of Trump in the general election. At the same time, however, the proceedings will take her away from Iowa, where she is dwindling in the polls, despite diverting resources from New Hampshire and Nevada to the first-in-the-nation caucus state. She is banking on a top-three finish in the contest to propel her toward Super Tuesday.
“I am always concerned about limited time in Iowa. Are you kidding me? Were I able to be awake for 24 hours, and if I could ensure that people would talk to me for 24 hours a day, I would do it,” Harris said last month in the state.
Klobuchar, ever the pragmatist, suggested her husband may campaign in her place.
“There’s many ways to reach out to people,” she told CNN’s The Lead.
For Jon Reinish of the Democratic firm SKDKnickerbocker, a Senate trial of Trump would be “both a blessing and a curse” for the senators.
“The blessing is that their strength as leaders will be on every television 24/7 in many living rooms across America and certainly every handheld device,” Reinish told the Washington Examiner.
Yet “the curse” is that it will distract them from the early-voting states toward the end of the race and eat into their time to raise money. Reinish joked that for a contender like Harris, her “frequent flyer miles between Des Moines and D.C. are going to skyrocket.”
“I’m sure it won’t be unheard of to turn on a dime and send a surrogate, beam in over Skype and get creative. As for private commutes, it’s not unheard of, but I doubt most will make that expense — for the only candidates swimming in money in the Senate, flying private is wildly off message — and Booker, Harris, and Bennet will want to pour their resources into media and visibility,” he said.
As with the logistics surrounding the trial, the broader political implications of impeachment are still unknown. Unlikely to cross the 67-vote threshold to trigger Trump’s removal, White House counsel Pat Cipollone indicated this week that the president would not pressure Senate Republicans to use their 53-seat majority to block proceedings. Trump himself welcomed the process on Friday morning, echoing Cipollone’s sentiments, who suggested the administration believes the trial will gin up the GOP base.
Democratic strategist Steve Murphy disagreed to a point, asserting the trial could be a boon for the Democrats vying for the right to challenge the incumbent next year.
“If anyone benefits, it would be a senator who’s just starting to break through, like Klobuchar,” Democratic strategist Steve Murphy told the Washington Examiner.
