How Rep. Al Green Killed GOP’s Mayorkas Impeachment In His Hospital Gown And Tan Socks

He’s full of fire!

Republicans have had a great week of losing, and it’s just Thursday! If losing was their 2024 stretch objective, they’re already exceeding expectations. Tuesday, House Republicans failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the high crime of existing in the Biden administration. They’d spent months accumulating no evidence and yelling a lot, but in the end, they were foiled by math, a somewhat predictable enemy.

House Republicans briefly thought they’d achieved their go-nowhere, spite impeachment — despite a whopping three members of their caucus showing minimal respect for the Constitution, but Democratic Rep. Al Green from Texas shocked them all when he arrived and said, “Here I am, baby.”

Green was recovering from emergency abdominal surgery on Friday, but he signed a waiver to leave the hospital Tuesday night and ordered his own Uber to take him to the Capitol. Democratic leadership did arrange a car for him, but there was no time for a dramatic costume change. He showed up for the vote in a wheelchair wearing a blue hospital gown and tan socks. This is a key example of performance trumping dress code.

Green’s “no” deadlocked the impeachment vote at 215 to 215, and another Republican switched their vote at the last minute, so the final score was 216 to 214. As noted political commentator Willy Wonka might’ve explained to Speaker For The Moment Mike Johnson, “You lose! Good day, sir.”

It’s still not the end. Republicans have vowed to try again once Rep. Steve Scalise, who’s receiving treatment for cancer, returns. Regardless, Republicans were incensed that Democrats just let them embarrass themselves this way without a heads-up that Green was coming.

“They [Democrats] hid one of their members, waiting until the last minute watching the CR votes, trying to throw us off from the numbers we had versus the numbers they had … that was a strategy at play tonight.”

This is so stupid it could only come from one vaguely human Congress member, but for journalistic clarity, I’ll confirm it was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. Unfortunately, an actual reporter with press credentials echoed Greene’s nonsense and asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, “Did Democrats let GOP leadership know that they had full attendance and if not, why? And how would you characterize your relationship with Speaker Johnson?”

Jeffries responded with more patience than deserved: “It’s not our responsibility to let House Republicans know which members will or will not be present on the House floor.”

House Democrats have bailed out the Republican majority twice so far, but they acted to avoid a catastrophic debt default and a needless government shutdown. They won’t enable sham impeachments.

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Republicans can’t even evil correctly

Greene, with her usual lack of self-awareness, accused Democrats of playing a political “game,” but Green wasn’t chasing a propaganda network’s TV cameras. He summoned the strength to leave his hospital bed and cast his vote because he rightly believed that Alejandro Mayorkas didn’t deserve to become the second Cabinet member impeached in US history. (The first was William Belknap, President Ulysses Grant's Secretary of War, who was involved in a kickback scheme, so would’ve been comfortable in the Trump administration.)

When Republicans protected former Rep. George Santos for a while, it was simply to deny Democrats a perceived “win.” They likely can’t imagine that Green might have a different motivation for protecting Mayorkas. I doubt they can grasp any motivations that aren’t petty or hateful.

Republicans have made Mayorkas their whipping boy. They have to hate someone, and it might as well be a Jewish Cuban-born refugee whose mother escaped the Holocaust. Republican Rep. Mark Green grossly called Mayorkas a “reptile” when discussing his impeachment.

It’s unclear what Republicans would achieve with a successful impeachment, but the nihilist caucus governs like the dullards in Fight Club: “When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved.” It’s the Gospel of MAGA.

Rep. Matt Gaetz demonstrated a classic supervillain mentality when he complained that expelling Santos prevented Republicans from impeaching Mayorkas. Gaetz would have no problem keeping a serial liar with multiple felony indictments in Congress just so he could help impeach Mayorkas, who’s committed zero crimes.

Gaetz also somehow blamed Kevin McCarthy, who he ousted as speaker, for not sticking around to impeach Mayorkas.

“Kevin McCarthy, after being dislodged as speaker, took his marbles and went home,” he whined on Newsmax. “He would’ve been a reliable vote for impeachment, but if he wasn’t speaker, he wasn’t willing to stick around. The errant expulsion of Santos and the abject selfishness of Kevin McCarthy contributed to this result.”

If Gaetz were capable of foresight or even a small child’s ability to know that the world exists when they aren’t watching, he would’ve understood that ousting McCarthy would logically lead to his resignation. It’s especially absurd that Gaetz now claims McCarthy is “reliable,” when he spent most of McCarthy’s speaker tenure saying just the opposite. “The one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz told CNN in the distant past of last October.

Gaetz hurled a grenade at Republican leadership but refuses to accept any personal responsibility for the result. These are fundamentally bad people, and it makes them incapable of working together, which I suppose is a net positive.

Let’s get back to the superior Green

Green, 76, gave his all to defend Secretary Mayorkas, who he describes as “a good, decent man whose reputation should not be besmirched.”

“I was determined to cast the vote long before — I had no idea how close it was going to be,” Green told The New York Times after returning to the hospital Tuesday night. “I didn’t come assuming that my vote was going to make a difference. I came because it was personal.”

Green also made it personal back in 2020 when Republican Rep. Ted Yoho accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez outside the Capitol and called her a “fucking bitch.” He offered a moving defense of his colleague on the House floor.

Madam Speaker, I am 72 years old. I have no children. But if I had a daughter, I would name her Alexandria, because my name is Alexander.

If I had a daughter, I would want her to be bold; I would want her to be courageous; I would want her to speak truth to power; I would want her to be just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The name means helper of humankind, and that is what she is about the business of doing.

Green is pretty bold himself. He introduced formal articles of impeachment against Donald Trump in 2017, despite pressure from Democratic leadership and other House members who believed it would alienate moderate voters at the midterms. When Democrats regained the House, he tried again in March and July 2019. The majority shut down both efforts. The third attempt was in response to Trump’s racist attack on Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow representatives of color Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. Green called out Trump’s “long history of abusing his office for the unconstitutional purpose of promoting racism and bigotry,” but few Democrats believed it was an impeachable offense. Yet, it was this venom that poisoned half the nation and directly led to the January 6 insurrection.

Of course, there were never enough votes in the Senate to remove Trump, just like there aren’t enough to remove Mayorkas. However, Green wasn’t just grandstanding. He took a firm moral position that decent people can respect. It’s one he can live with, and I hope he lives with it for a good while longer.

[New York Times / ABC News]

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