U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher joins Democrats in blocking impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher on Tuesday voted against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border — a decisive move that helped kill his party’s impeachment push.

Gallagher joined three other Republicans and every Democrat in rejecting impeachment. Republicans could only afford to lose two votes from their conference to pass the resolution through their slim majority, and the impeachment effort failed 214-216.

“Secretary Mayorkas has faithfully implemented President Biden’s open border policies and helped create the dangerous crisis at the southern border," Gallagher said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "But the proponents of impeachment failed to make the argument as to how his stunning incompetence meets the impeachment threshold Republicans outlined while defending former President Trump."

He said impeaching the cabinet secretary would "only further pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”

Republican Reps. Tom McClintock of California and Ken Buck of Colorado also voted against the measure. Utah Rep. Blake Moore, the House GOP's vice chair, changed his vote to no, likely to allow the House to reconsider the motion.

Tuesday’s vote at least temporarily put an end to Republicans’ monthslong campaign to impeach Mayorkas on charges of “willful and systemic refusal” to uphold the law and breaching the public trust for the administration’s inability to stem the flow of migrants entering the country from the U.S.-Mexico border.

(Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, missed the vote, and a spokesman for Speaker Mike Johnson Tuesday night said Republicans "fully intend" to bring another impeachment vote against Mayorkas to the floor "when we have the votes for passage.")

Republicans, including those in Wisconsin, have contended Mayorkas has intentionally rejected his duties. Democrats, meanwhile, framed the effort as a partisan political stunt pushed forward without evidence of a crime. A number of legal experts had labeled the Republican complaints as policy disagreements rather than the high crimes necessary to rise to the level of impeachment.

“This is ludicrous,” Milwaukee Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Tuesday. She called impeachment “very serious” and noted House Republicans have largely rejected a $118 billion bipartisan package to secure the border and provide aid to embattled allies like Ukraine — something Republicans requested in order to support additional foreign aid.

“They’d rather have the issue for Trump to be able to run on than to actually fix it,” Moore said. “They’re not going to even take it up … and they want to impeach him? It’s just so counterintuitive.”

As the vote was ongoing, multiple Republicans — including Reps. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota and Homeland Security Chair Mark Green of Tennessee — huddled around Gallagher toward the back of the House chamber and spoke to the Green Bay Republican.

At one point, Texas Republican Rep. Jody Arrington engaged Gallagher in an animated conversation.

But Gallagher on Tuesday drew comparisons between Democrats' impeachments of Trump and the Republican effort against Mayorkas in explaining why he rejected the push. He said Democrats "used impeachment as a weapon against Mr. Trump" but suggested Tuesday's impeachment vote grasped at a lower threshold.

"Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, won’t secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable and will set a dangerous new precedent that will be weaponized against future Republican administrations," Gallagher said.

Still, every other Wisconsin Republican joined most of their conference in supporting impeachment.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican of Juneau, told the Journal Sentinel last week that Mayorkas “misled Congress” when he previously said his department had operational control of the border. Fitzgerald said there is “zero confidence in him as far as the House is concerned” and said the situation at the border is “truly threatening this country.”

“It’s not just a policy dispute,” Fitzgerald said. “This is being done on purpose. That’s why I’m concerned that if we don’t get something done in this Congress, we’re in big trouble.”

And Rep. Derrick Van Orden, of Prairie du Chien, accused Mayorkas of “intentionally violating the law as a cabinet secretary.”

Those who supported the impeachment effort brushed off questions about the precedent impeaching a cabinet secretary could set.

Both Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany and Sen. Ron Johnson suggested Democrats started the precedent of impeachment when they twice impeached former President Donald Trump.

“They opened up this can of worms, and these are the rules that we play by now,” Tiffany told the Journal Sentinel.

“I don’t like using impeachment as a cudgel and kind of a ping pong back and forth,” Johnson said in a brief interview. “But it’s the Democrats (who) started doing that.”

Johnson, who previously told Mayorkas to resign during a Homeland Security hearing last year, called the situation at the border “unprecedented” and accused Democrats of wanting an open border. Asked about his remarks on Democrats, Johnson replied: “They’re trying to get a bunch of people that are very appreciative to the Democrat Party for letting them in this country so they’d vote for them and create a long-term majority.”

The failed impeachment push came as the two parties butt heads over how to address the situation at the southern border during an election year. Republicans this week moved to kill the $118 billion bipartisan border and foreign aid supplement deal after calling for legislative action. And Democrats have pointed to Trump’s opposition to the package as a key reason why.

Some Democrats on the House floor before the vote noted Mayorkas had been involved in months of talks over border negotiations Republicans requested and then subsequently rejected upon its release.

“Democracy all over the world is under siege today, and all our colleagues can think to do is to sell out our democratic allies and sell out the cause of human rights and then impeach a cabinet secretary working diligently to solve the immigration problem that they claim to care about,” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said.

Just one cabinet secretary has been impeached by the House in the country’s history.

William W. Belknap, the secretary of war under President Ulysses S. Grant, was impeached in 1876 on charges of corruption and “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War.” He was acquitted by the Senate.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mike Gallagher joins Democrats in blocking impeachment of Mayorkas