“Jeffries didn’t even whip the vote,” one critic said about the House minority leader, who wants to be speaker. “This is why people want a stronger leader.”
As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seeks to become speaker when Democrats retake Congress in January, critics questioned his leadership Tuesday after the Republican-led lower chamber effectively blocked a bid to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by just seven votes—an outcome that may have been averted if more Democrats showed up to vote.
The 211-204 procedural vote effectively torpedoed Congressman Thomas Massie’s attempt to impeach Hegseth by sending the outgoing Kentucky Republican’s resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, where it will likely gather dust during the remainder of the GOP-controlled congressional term.
I disagree that this is doa in the senate, but that’s beside the point. The main point of this (and many other failing proposals) is messaging.
With this, Jeffries communicated that even after the midterms, he doesn’t care about this. You are right that in January the democrats will have full control and will be able to impeach if they want, but this signals they likely will not.
If it had passed to the senate, it would have forced republican senators to reaffirm their loyalty to trump by voting no. Since the midterms, many of them have discovered they are in a swing state all of a sudden. Even if none of them break ranks, that is valuable ammunition for the next election cycle. So in effect, Jeffries helped shield a bunch of republican senators from having to make a painful vote.