Lehigh County GOP censures Toomey for impeachment vote
Lehigh County Republicans voted overwhelmingly to censure Sen. Pat Toomey on Tuesday night, formally reprimanding the region’s most powerful elected official almost a month after he voted to indict former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.
More than two-thirds of the members present at Tuesday’s Lehigh County Republican Committee voted to censure Toomey, Robert Arena, executive director of the committee, said in an email Wednesday morning. The resolution was not available for review.
“The censure resolution was based on Senator Toomey’s violation of the United States constitution to have an impeachment trial of a former President without a presiding Chief Justice. We will be sending the resolution that passed to Senator Toomey. Our party now needs to unify and come together for our Republican candidates up and down the ballot this election cycle,” he said in a statement.
Censure votes are formal rebukes by an organization against one of its members. In U.S. politics, the House or Senate may censure one of its members or the president; it’s the harshest condemnation that can be imposed short of impeaching them or expelling them from office. For party committees, censures are a way to pressure an official straying too far from the party and its positions.
It’s unclear what effect the symbolic gesture will carry. Toomey, a Zionsville resident, announced weeks before the 2020 election that he would not seek reelection or run for governor in 2022.
Toomey was one of seven Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Other Republicans condemned the president’s behavior but refused to convict, saying an official no longer in office could not be impeached, even though past Senates have set that precedent.
Trump spent months promoting false claims that the election was rigged, even though dozens of federal judges found no evidence to support his cause and allies in his own administration determined there was no widespread fraud. Immediately before the attack, Trump exhorted a crowd to “fight like hell” to save the country and deny Joe Biden the presidency. Toomey and like-minded Republicans say his behavior has no place in American democracy.
Toomey’s vote infuriated Republicans across the state, and county committees rushed to condemn him for breaking from Trump. Northampton County Republicans didn’t wait until Toomey’s impeachment vote, instead censuring him when he determined in January that an impeachment trial was appropriate. The state Republican committee was unable to reach a decision after hours of debate last month. Ultimately, it strongly rebuked Toomey without making a formal censure.
Toomey’s office has repeatedly declined to comment on the censure votes, but pointed to his comments immediately after the impeachment trial.
“The fact that the president did stand up to and against some bad policies and some bad trends — those things can be true and it can also be true that his behavior after the election became completely unacceptable. I hope that we get to the point where we can come together as a party and recognize those things,” Toomey told reporters Feb. 13.
The censure by local Republicans — people who have known and supported him for decades — highlights Toomey’s stunning political reversal. The former Wall Street banker and restaurant owner was a driving force in crafting Allentown’s Home Rule Charter 25 years ago, and he was first elected the region’s congressman in 1998.
When he unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004, Republicans held him up as the poster child of what a Republican should be compared to the moderate Specter. Less than a year ago, he was viewed as the strongest potential Republican candidate in the 2022 gubernatorial race.