Dem
47
GOP
53
Texas Democrats' quorum-jumping has come to an end. They all returned to the state, which means the Texas legislature will now have a quorum. Texas law enforcement officers have been assigned to keep an eye on the Democratic members, and to escort them to the state capitol on Wednesday, when the vote on the new Texas district maps will be held. This certainly does not bring to mind images of the Reichstag or the Supreme Soviet. No, sir!
That means that, very soon, all eyes will soon be on California. And Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made clear yesterday that he will be leading the fight against Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) plans. The Speaker posted a long rant to eX-Twitter; the last paragraph (of four) gives a pretty good feel for the thing:
Democrats across the nation have played politics with redistricting for decades, and this is just the latest example. Republicans who are following state and federal laws will not be lectured by people who abused the system. I have instructed the NRCC to use every measure and resource possible to fight the California Democrats' illegal power grab. I will continue to lead efforts to defend our House Republican incumbents and grow our majority so that we can continue to deliver on our commonsense, America First agenda.
Do you really think he believes this nonsense? It's possible; he has some strange ideas about things, and it's much easier to sell a lie if you believe it. We presume it goes without saying that a person could reasonably argue that both Texas and California are abusing the system, or that they're both playing an unfair game to the best of their ability. But the notion that Texas is as pure as the driven snow, while California is the Great Satan? Please. It is reminiscent of Mitch McConnell's rules for appointing a Supreme Court justice in the last year of a presidential term, which boiled down to "yes for Republican nominees to the Court, but NO for Democratic nominees."
And this is not the only crime against civic education being perpetrated by Johnson and his fellow Republicans. The GOP is still trying to work out its messaging for the midterms. As seems to be the case for most elections these days, the plan is not so much to make a case that the Republicans are good, as it is to make a case that the Democrats are really, really, really bad. And, as part of that, the red team is already trying to weaponize impeachment.
Now, you might be confused as to how the Republicans can weaponize impeachment, since it's a Republican administration in the White House right now. The answer is that, with Johnson taking the lead, they are warning that if those nasty, nasty Democrats gain the House, they will immediately impeach Trump, and that will be the end of the Trump presidency, MAGA, etc. Obviously, this conveniently overlooks that an impeachment won't remove Trump, only a conviction would do that. And a conviction would require something like 17 Republican votes in the Senate, which is not happening.
As we point out in the headline, the crap that Johnson, et al., are peddling depends on voters not understanding basic U.S. civics. The problem is that Johnson, et al., might be sleazy, but betting on voters (particularly Republican voters) not knowing their civics is a pretty good wager.
When it comes to the redistricting, Democrats are going to have to work hard to frame California's efforts as a response to Texas' maneuvering, and not a naked power grab. Fortunately for the blue team, Texas is making it pretty easy to sell that story, and Newsom is very media-savvy.
Impeachment, we think, is much tougher. It is clear to us that impeachment threats do more to gin up MAGA voters than anyone else. And we are certainly not the only ones who think that way; to take one example, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) said: "We should never, at least in the near future, use the 'I' word. One of the things we learned is that articles of impeachment are also articles of recruitment for Trump."
The problem here, pre-midterms, is that there are some Democratic officeholders for whom a sentence has three parts: a noun, a verb and impeachment. It will not be easy for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), et al., to impose the kind of messaging discipline Cleaver proposes. And then, post-midterms, assuming the blue team retakes the lower chamber, they will probably have to put impeachment on the back burner for a good while. If they moved forward with articles of impeachment on Day 1 (or 2, or 3), even if they were well-justified, it would absolutely look like a political stunt. That's true even without Republicans' predicting a Day 1 impeachment.
We would guess that the only way that Democratic-brought articles of impeachment will pass muster with the 60% of voters who are not MAGA is if they wait until Trump does something really impeachable in 2027 or early 2028, and then they move forward with that. Since he does something impeachable pretty much every week, the blue team should have plenty of opportunities, if this is a statement they want to make. But again, it will require a lot of discipline, and somehow persuading members like Reps. Al Green (D-TX) or Shri Thanedar (D-MI) to refrain from introducing articles of impeachment every 2 minutes. Should there be any doubt on this point, consider how seriously people take articles of impeachment when they are introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). (Z)