House vote to mark partisan era
After Clinton, things more bitter this time around for Trump
WASHINGTON — This week’s virtually certain House impeachment of President Donald Trump will underscore how Democrats and Republicans have morphed into fiercely divided camps since lawmakers impeached President Bill Clinton.
Twenty-one years ago this Thursday, a Republican-led House approved two impeachment articles against Democrat Clinton. While that battle was bitterly partisan, it was blurrier than the near party-line votes expected this week when the House, now run by Democrats, is poised to impeach Trump.
Two of the four Clinton impeachment articles were killed — something party leaders today would jump through hoops to avoid for fear of highlighting divisions. All four Clinton articles drew GOP opposition, peaking at 81 on one vote. That’s an unthinkable number of defections today.
“Obviously it was partisan, but it wasn’t as intensely partisan as today is,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., one of four Republicans who opposed all the Clinton impeachment articles and the last remaining member of that group in Congress.
In the upcoming votes on impeaching Trump, Democrats expect support from all but a few — two to perhaps 10 — of their members. Republican leaders envision no GOP desertions.
Few defections are expected by either party when the GOP-run Senate holds a trial, probably in January, on whether to oust Trump from office. No one expects Democrats to muster the two-thirds Senate majority needed for removal over charges that he leveraged U.S. military aid and a White House meeting coveted by Ukrainian leaders to pressure them to announce investigations of his Democratic political foes.
Most Democrats were dismissive of the GOP’s impeachment charges that Clinton lied to a grand jury and others about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
“The Constitution is really to protect the nation against the abuse of presidential power. Any husband could lie under oath about an affair. It doesn’t take presidential powers to do that,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who opposed the Clinton impeachment and is still in Congress, said Friday.
Clinton was a lame duck but widely popular president who was presiding over a booming economy, and polling showed that impeachment had little support. That gave Democrats little reason to back the effort to remove him and made many Republicans think twice about backing impeachment.
That helps explain why 81 Republicans opposed one defeated Clinton impeachment article. The other three articles drew 28, 12 and 5 GOP “no” votes. No more than five Democrats backed any of the articles impeaching Clinton.
Former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was chief House GOP vote counter in 1998 and was known as “The Hammer” for his effectiveness in lining up support. In an interview Friday, he said he urged wavering Republicans to read evidence gathered by Ken Starr, the independent counsel who headed the investigation into Clinton that led to the impeachment.
DeLay said party leaders “cannot break arms” on an impeachment vote because it is too important. That echoes current Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has said she’s not lobbying Democrats on the upcoming Trump votes.
Trump faces reelection next year and has a strong track record of weaponizing Twitter to demolish the political careers of Republicans who oppose him.
Retired GOP Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob
Corker of Tennessee left Congress following running battles with Trump, and South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford lost a party primary last year after running afoul of him.
“If you cross Trump, you’re a short-timer when it comes to politics,” said John Feehery, a GOP consultant and former House leadership aide.
The calendar of both impeachment votes is another factor.
The House’s Clinton impeachment votes came a month after congressional elections, giving incumbents two years — a lifetime in politics — until they next faced voters.
This year’s Trump impeachment votes will come as the 2020 primary season is about to begin, putting recalcitrant Republicans at risk of facing Trumpbacked primary challengers.
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have trained their sights on the Democrats who represent districts that supported the president in 2016.
More than half of the 31 Democrats targeted by Trump haven’t said yet how they’ll vote.
Those Democrats who flipped Trump-won districts in 2018 credit their success to running on kitchen-table issues, namely health care and the promise to preserve protections for people with preexisting health conditions; none claimed “they were with” Trump.
Only one of the Democrats in Trump’s crosshairs sits on the House Judiciary Committee that voted on partisan lines on the two articles of impeachment Friday.
Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, who narrowly won her seat in 2018, said she voted her conscience.
“And I do so with a heavy heart, and a grieving soul,” she said in a statement. “This is not why I came to Washington; I came to Washington because I love my country.”