House rejects one effort to force vote on impeachment

WASHINGTON — House Democrats rejected an attempt Wednesday to force a vote on impeaching President Donald Trump, showing that anger and frustration over the president’s racist tweets and other actions have not yet convinced a majority to push for his removal.

By a vote of 332 to 95, lawmakers tabled the motion a day after a divided House passed a resolution, largely along party lines, that “strongly condemned” Trump for telling four liberal members of Congress, all women of color and all U.S. citizens, to leave the country.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, strongly backed that resolution, but she has pushed back against efforts to start impeachment proceedings against the president, in part because of concerns it would backfire against Democrats in the 2020 election.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, had introduced the impeachment measure that calls Trump “unfit to be president” and asks for his removal.

Trump has “brought the high office of the President of the United States in contempt” and “sown seeds of discord among the people of the United States,” Green wrote.

He cited Trump’s racist tweets telling the four female lawmakers to “go back” to the “crime-infested places from which they came.”

The House could have voted to proceed with the measure, formally opening a debate on the floor over whether the president should be impeached, but Pelosi and other Democrats helped block the effort.

Green previously had tried, and failed, to persuade his fellow lawmakers to impeach in floor speeches twice before.

But Tuesday’s motion was significant because it comes as impeachment is gaining traction among some Democrats and emerging as a divisive issue in the party.