South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
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 GOPrun 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, DCalif., 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.
In contrast, several House Republicans who opposed at least one Clinton impeachment article saw their political careers prosper. They include John Thune of South Dakota, now the No. 2 Senate GOP leader; John Kasich, who became a two-term Ohio governor and challenged Trump for the 2016 presidential nomination; and
current Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Burr of North Carolina.
Sanford rose to South Carolina governor, but abandoned the job after admitting to an extramarital affair. He returned to the House but was defeated after clashing with Trump.
Clinton’s impeachment came four years after Republicans led by Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia captured House control for the first time in four decades.
Gingrich became speaker and embraced aggressive confrontations with Democrats. That culminated in the House impeachment of Clinton, which the GOP-led Senate later rejecting.
But even the Gingrich era’s battles were tamer than today’s fights, with Clinton’s impeachment a case in point.
Back then, each party had scores of moderate lawmakers who would cross party lines on issues such as abortion, taxes and spending. Those numbers have dwindled dramatically, especially among House Republicans. Only three come from districts that Democrat Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016
presidential election. Thirty-one Democrats represent Trump-won districts, and they are their party’s most nervous members about impeachment.
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.
On Saturday, Trump quoted conservative pundit Jason Meister, who zeroed in on those Democrats during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“There are 31 House Democrats in Trump won Congressional Districts,” Trump tweeted Meister as saying. “Those Dems will have to answer to their constituents come 2020 . ... The American people are going to speak up and speak out about this. I think this guarantees Trump’s reelection in 2020.”
Republicans have mounted an intense pressure campaign on those moderate Democrats in the so-called swing districts who helped deliver their party the House majority in 2018. Their offices have been inundated with calls and pro-Trump groups have already spent more than $10 million in ads against Democrats over the impeachment.
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Saturday the office phone numbers and Twitter handles of the 31 Democrats, encouraging his 4.1 million followers to call “nonstop, tweet at them, tell them this will NOT STAND & you’ll remember in Nov!”
“Enough! These Democrats in Trump districts said they were with @realDonaldTrump,” he wrote. “They lied! - Now now its time to hear from OUR MOVEMENT.”
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.”