Dem
52
Ties
2
GOP
46
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is, to be blunt, one of the showiest show horses in the House right now. He's somewhat famous for his stunts during Trump State of the Union addresses (having been ejected multiple times). That might make him feel good, and might burnish his political prospects, but he's often acting a way that is not so great for the image or the message of the Democratic Party as a whole.
Now, even if the stunts did burnish Green's political prospects, they apparently did not do so quite enough, as he will be out of a job in January. Thanks to redistricting, he ended up facing off against another sitting Democratic member of the House—Christian Menefee—in this year's primaries, and he lost badly, with Menefee taking 69.3% of the vote in the runoff to just 30.7% for Green. Voters may have preferred a younger representative, or perhaps one less enamored of shenanigans.
As he prepares to exit, though, Green has decided to pull one more trick out of his sleeve. For the eighth time since 2017, Green will use parliamentary maneuvers to force the House to vote on a measure to impeach Donald Trump.
The other Democrats in the House are furious, as this plays into the hands of the GOP. Leading into the midterms, it will allow Trump and other Republicans to argue that the Democrats just hate the President, and don't care about anything else. And in the next Congress, it will be easier to argue that any impeachment of Trump isn't legitimate, and is just another stunt. So, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and the other blue-team pooh-bahs are trying hard to twist Green's arm to try to get him to forego his plans. But he doesn't care and, on top of that, there is none so free as someone who has nothing to lose.
Because the Democrats, by and large, don't particularly want to vote to impeach Trump right now (looks like a cheap stunt), but they also don't want to vote against impeaching Trump (suggests they are OK with his bad behavior), it is likely that a large number of them will just vote "present," or will somehow manage to be absent the day Green brings his bill to the floor. Last time Green did this (December of last year), 47 of them voted "present." That number might double or triple this time. (Z)